1 .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+
3 Compiled-in Device Tree / Platform Data
4 =======================================
10 Device tree is the standard configuration method in U-Boot. It is used to
11 define what devices are in the system and provide configuration information
14 The overhead of adding device tree access to U-Boot is fairly modest,
15 approximately 3KB on Thumb 2 (plus the size of the DT itself). This means
16 that in most cases it is best to use device tree for configuration.
18 However there are some very constrained environments where U-Boot needs to
19 work. These include SPL with severe memory limitations. For example, some
20 SoCs require a 16KB SPL image which must include a full MMC stack. In this
21 case the overhead of device tree access may be too great.
23 It is possible to create platform data manually by defining C structures
24 for it, and reference that data in a U_BOOT_DEVICE() declaration. This
25 bypasses the use of device tree completely, effectively creating a parallel
26 configuration mechanism. But it is an available option for SPL.
28 As an alternative, a new 'of-platdata' feature is provided. This converts the
29 device tree contents into C code which can be compiled into the SPL binary.
30 This saves the 3KB of code overhead and perhaps a few hundred more bytes due
31 to more efficient storage of the data.
33 Note: Quite a bit of thought has gone into the design of this feature.
34 However it still has many rough edges and comments and suggestions are
35 strongly encouraged! Quite possibly there is a much better approach.
41 There are many problems with this features. It should only be used when
42 strictly necessary. Notable problems include:
44 - Device tree does not describe data types. But the C code must define a
45 type for each property. These are guessed using heuristics which
46 are wrong in several fairly common cases. For example an 8-byte value
47 is considered to be a 2-item integer array, and is byte-swapped. A
48 boolean value that is not present means 'false', but cannot be
49 included in the structures since there is generally no mention of it
50 in the device tree file.
52 - Naming of nodes and properties is automatic. This means that they follow
53 the naming in the device tree, which may result in C identifiers that
56 - It is not possible to find a value given a property name. Code must use
57 the associated C member variable directly in the code. This makes
58 the code less robust in the face of device-tree changes. It also
59 makes it very unlikely that your driver code will be useful for more
60 than one SoC. Even if the code is common, each SoC will end up with
61 a different C struct name, and a likely a different format for the
64 - The platform data is provided to drivers as a C structure. The driver
65 must use the same structure to access the data. Since a driver
66 normally also supports device tree it must use #ifdef to separate
67 out this code, since the structures are only available in SPL.
69 - Correct relations between nodes are not implemented. This means that
70 parent/child relations (like bus device iteration) do not work yet.
71 Some phandles (those that are recognised as such) are converted into
72 a pointer to platform data. This pointer can potentially be used to
73 access the referenced device (by searching for the pointer value).
74 This feature is not yet implemented, however.
80 The feature is enabled by CONFIG OF_PLATDATA. This is only available in
81 SPL/TPL and should be tested with:
85 #if CONFIG_IS_ENABLED(OF_PLATDATA)
87 A new tool called 'dtoc' converts a device tree file either into a set of
88 struct declarations, one for each compatible node, and a set of
89 U_BOOT_DEVICE() declarations along with the actual platform data for each
90 device. As an example, consider this MMC node:
94 sdmmc: dwmmc@ff0c0000 {
95 compatible = "rockchip,rk3288-dw-mshc";
96 clock-freq-min-max = <400000 150000000>;
97 clocks = <&cru HCLK_SDMMC>, <&cru SCLK_SDMMC>,
98 <&cru SCLK_SDMMC_DRV>, <&cru SCLK_SDMMC_SAMPLE>;
99 clock-names = "biu", "ciu", "ciu_drv", "ciu_sample";
100 fifo-depth = <0x100>;
101 interrupts = <GIC_SPI 32 IRQ_TYPE_LEVEL_HIGH>;
102 reg = <0xff0c0000 0x4000>;
106 card-detect-delay = <200>;
109 pinctrl-names = "default";
110 pinctrl-0 = <&sdmmc_clk>, <&sdmmc_cmd>, <&sdmmc_cd>, <&sdmmc_bus4>;
111 vmmc-supply = <&vcc_sd>;
117 Some of these properties are dropped by U-Boot under control of the
118 CONFIG_OF_SPL_REMOVE_PROPS option. The rest are processed. This will produce
119 the following C struct declaration:
123 struct dtd_rockchip_rk3288_dw_mshc {
125 bool cap_mmc_highspeed;
126 bool cap_sd_highspeed;
127 fdt32_t card_detect_delay;
128 fdt32_t clock_freq_min_max[2];
129 struct phandle_1_arg clocks[4];
132 fdt32_t interrupts[3];
138 and the following device declaration:
142 static struct dtd_rockchip_rk3288_dw_mshc dtv_dwmmc_at_ff0c0000 = {
144 .cap_sd_highspeed = true,
145 .interrupts = {0x0, 0x20, 0x4},
146 .clock_freq_min_max = {0x61a80, 0x8f0d180},
149 .clocks = {{&dtv_clock_controller_at_ff760000, 456},
150 {&dtv_clock_controller_at_ff760000, 68},
151 {&dtv_clock_controller_at_ff760000, 114},
152 {&dtv_clock_controller_at_ff760000, 118}},
153 .cap_mmc_highspeed = true,
156 .u_boot_dm_pre_reloc = true,
157 .reg = {0xff0c0000, 0x4000},
158 .card_detect_delay = 0xc8,
161 U_BOOT_DEVICE(dwmmc_at_ff0c0000) = {
162 .name = "rockchip_rk3288_dw_mshc",
163 .platdata = &dtv_dwmmc_at_ff0c0000,
164 .platdata_size = sizeof(dtv_dwmmc_at_ff0c0000),
167 The device is then instantiated at run-time and the platform data can be
173 struct dtd_rockchip_rk3288_dw_mshc *plat = dev_get_platdata(dev);
175 This avoids the code overhead of converting the device tree data to
176 platform data in the driver. The ofdata_to_platdata() method should
177 therefore do nothing in such a driver.
179 Note that for the platform data to be matched with a driver, the 'name'
180 property of the U_BOOT_DEVICE() declaration has to match a driver declared
181 via U_BOOT_DRIVER(). This effectively means that a U_BOOT_DRIVER() with a
182 'name' corresponding to the devicetree 'compatible' string (after converting
183 it to a valid name for C) is needed, so a dedicated driver is required for
184 each 'compatible' string.
186 Where a node has multiple compatible strings, a #define is used to make them
191 #define dtd_rockchip_rk3299_dw_mshc dtd_rockchip_rk3288_dw_mshc
194 Converting of-platdata to a useful form
195 ---------------------------------------
197 Of course it would be possible to use the of-platdata directly in your driver
198 whenever configuration information is required. However this means that the
199 driver will not be able to support device tree, since the of-platdata
200 structure is not available when device tree is used. It would make no sense
201 to use this structure if device tree were available, since the structure has
202 all the limitations metioned in caveats above.
204 Therefore it is recommended that the of-platdata structure should be used
205 only in the probe() method of your driver. It cannot be used in the
206 ofdata_to_platdata() method since this is not called when platform data is
210 How to structure your driver
211 ----------------------------
213 Drivers should always support device tree as an option. The of-platdata
214 feature is intended as a add-on to existing drivers.
216 Your driver should convert the platdata struct in its probe() method. The
217 existing device tree decoding logic should be kept in the
218 ofdata_to_platdata() method and wrapped with #if.
224 #include <dt-structs.h>
226 struct mmc_platdata {
227 #if CONFIG_IS_ENABLED(OF_PLATDATA)
228 /* Put this first since driver model will copy the data here */
229 struct dtd_mmc dtplat;
232 * Other fields can go here, to be filled in by decoding from
233 * the device tree (or the C structures when of-platdata is used).
238 static int mmc_ofdata_to_platdata(struct udevice *dev)
240 #if !CONFIG_IS_ENABLED(OF_PLATDATA)
241 /* Decode the device tree data */
242 struct mmc_platdata *plat = dev_get_platdata(dev);
243 const void *blob = gd->fdt_blob;
244 int node = dev_of_offset(dev);
246 plat->fifo_depth = fdtdec_get_int(blob, node, "fifo-depth", 0);
252 static int mmc_probe(struct udevice *dev)
254 struct mmc_platdata *plat = dev_get_platdata(dev);
256 #if CONFIG_IS_ENABLED(OF_PLATDATA)
257 /* Decode the of-platdata from the C structures */
258 struct dtd_mmc *dtplat = &plat->dtplat;
260 plat->fifo_depth = dtplat->fifo_depth;
262 /* Set up the device from the plat data */
263 writel(plat->fifo_depth, ...)
266 static const struct udevice_id mmc_ids[] = {
267 { .compatible = "vendor,mmc" },
271 U_BOOT_DRIVER(mmc_drv) = {
272 .name = "vendor_mmc", /* matches compatible string */
275 .ofdata_to_platdata = mmc_ofdata_to_platdata,
277 .priv_auto_alloc_size = sizeof(struct mmc_priv),
278 .platdata_auto_alloc_size = sizeof(struct mmc_platdata),
282 Note that struct mmc_platdata is defined in the C file, not in a header. This
283 is to avoid needing to include dt-structs.h in a header file. The idea is to
284 keep the use of each of-platdata struct to the smallest possible code area.
285 There is just one driver C file for each struct, that can convert from the
286 of-platdata struct to the standard one used by the driver.
288 In the case where SPL_OF_PLATDATA is enabled, platdata_auto_alloc_size is
289 still used to allocate space for the platform data. This is different from
290 the normal behaviour and is triggered by the use of of-platdata (strictly
291 speaking it is a non-zero platdata_size which triggers this).
293 The of-platdata struct contents is copied from the C structure data to the
294 start of the newly allocated area. In the case where device tree is used,
295 the platform data is allocated, and starts zeroed. In this case the
296 ofdata_to_platdata() method should still set up the platform data (and the
297 of-platdata struct will not be present).
299 SPL must use either of-platdata or device tree. Drivers cannot use both at
300 the same time, but they must support device tree. Supporting of-platdata is
303 The device tree becomes in accessible when CONFIG_SPL_OF_PLATDATA is enabled,
304 since the device-tree access code is not compiled in. A corollary is that
305 a board can only move to using of-platdata if all the drivers it uses support
306 it. There would be little point in having some drivers require the device
307 tree data, since then libfdt would still be needed for those drivers and
308 there would be no code-size benefit.
313 The dt-structs.h file includes the generated file
314 (include/generated//dt-structs.h) if CONFIG_SPL_OF_PLATDATA is enabled.
315 Otherwise (such as in U-Boot proper) these structs are not available. This
316 prevents them being used inadvertently. All usage must be bracketed with
317 #if CONFIG_IS_ENABLED(OF_PLATDATA).
319 The dt-platdata.c file contains the device declarations and is is built in
322 The beginnings of a libfdt Python module are provided. So far this only
323 implements a subset of the features.
325 The 'swig' tool is needed to build the libfdt Python module. If this is not
326 found then the Python model is not used and a fallback is used instead, which
333 This is an implementation of an idea by Tom Rini <trini@konsulko.com>.
338 - Consider programmatically reading binding files instead of device tree
340 - Complete the phandle feature
341 - Move to using a full Python libfdt module
344 .. Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>
347 .. Updated Independence Day 2016