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Linux 3.13-rc3

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+GPIO Interfaces
+===============
+
+The documents in this directory give detailed instructions on how to access
+GPIOs in drivers, and how to write a driver for a device that provides GPIOs
+itself.
+
+Due to the history of GPIO interfaces in the kernel, there are two different
+ways to obtain and use GPIOs:
+
+  - The descriptor-based interface is the preferred way to manipulate GPIOs,
+and is described by all the files in this directory excepted gpio-legacy.txt.
+  - The legacy integer-based interface which is considered deprecated (but still
+usable for compatibility reasons) is documented in gpio-legacy.txt.
+
+The remainder of this document applies to the new descriptor-based interface.
+gpio-legacy.txt contains the same information applied to the legacy
+integer-based interface.
+
+
+What is a GPIO?
+===============
+
+A "General Purpose Input/Output" (GPIO) is a flexible software-controlled
+digital signal. They are provided from many kinds of chip, and are familiar
+to Linux developers working with embedded and custom hardware. Each GPIO
+represents a bit connected to a particular pin, or "ball" on Ball Grid Array
+(BGA) packages. Board schematics show which external hardware connects to
+which GPIOs. Drivers can be written generically, so that board setup code
+passes such pin configuration data to drivers.
+
+System-on-Chip (SOC) processors heavily rely on GPIOs. In some cases, every
+non-dedicated pin can be configured as a GPIO; and most chips have at least
+several dozen of them. Programmable logic devices (like FPGAs) can easily
+provide GPIOs; multifunction chips like power managers, and audio codecs
+often have a few such pins to help with pin scarcity on SOCs; and there are
+also "GPIO Expander" chips that connect using the I2C or SPI serial buses.
+Most PC southbridges have a few dozen GPIO-capable pins (with only the BIOS
+firmware knowing how they're used).
+
+The exact capabilities of GPIOs vary between systems. Common options:
+
+  - Output values are writable (high=1, low=0). Some chips also have
+    options about how that value is driven, so that for example only one
+    value might be driven, supporting "wire-OR" and similar schemes for the
+    other value (notably, "open drain" signaling).
+
+  - Input values are likewise readable (1, 0). Some chips support readback
+    of pins configured as "output", which is very useful in such "wire-OR"
+    cases (to support bidirectional signaling). GPIO controllers may have
+    input de-glitch/debounce logic, sometimes with software controls.
+
+  - Inputs can often be used as IRQ signals, often edge triggered but
+    sometimes level triggered. Such IRQs may be configurable as system
+    wakeup events, to wake the system from a low power state.
+
+  - Usually a GPIO will be configurable as either input or output, as needed
+    by different product boards; single direction ones exist too.
+
+  - Most GPIOs can be accessed while holding spinlocks, but those accessed
+    through a serial bus normally can't. Some systems support both types.
+
+On a given board each GPIO is used for one specific purpose like monitoring
+MMC/SD card insertion/removal, detecting card write-protect status, driving
+a LED, configuring a transceiver, bit-banging a serial bus, poking a hardware
+watchdog, sensing a switch, and so on.
+
+
+Common GPIO Properties
+======================
+
+These properties are met through all the other documents of the GPIO interface
+and it is useful to understand them, especially if you need to define GPIO
+mappings.
+
+Active-High and Active-Low
+--------------------------
+It is natural to assume that a GPIO is "active" when its output signal is 1
+("high"), and inactive when it is 0 ("low"). However in practice the signal of a
+GPIO may be inverted before is reaches its destination, or a device could decide
+to have different conventions about what "active" means. Such decisions should
+be transparent to device drivers, therefore it is possible to define a GPIO as
+being either active-high ("1" means "active", the default) or active-low ("0"
+means "active") so that drivers only need to worry about the logical signal and
+not about what happens at the line level.
+
+Open Drain and Open Source
+--------------------------
+Sometimes shared signals need to use "open drain" (where only the low signal
+level is actually driven), or "open source" (where only the high signal level is
+driven) signaling. That term applies to CMOS transistors; "open collector" is
+used for TTL. A pullup or pulldown resistor causes the high or low signal level.
+This is sometimes called a "wire-AND"; or more practically, from the negative
+logic (low=true) perspective this is a "wire-OR".
+
+One common example of an open drain signal is a shared active-low IRQ line.
+Also, bidirectional data bus signals sometimes use open drain signals.
+
+Some GPIO controllers directly support open drain and open source outputs; many
+don't. When you need open drain signaling but your hardware doesn't directly
+support it, there's a common idiom you can use to emulate it with any GPIO pin
+that can be used as either an input or an output:
+
+ LOW:	gpiod_direction_output(gpio, 0) ... this drives the signal and overrides
+	the pullup.
+
+ HIGH:	gpiod_direction_input(gpio) ... this turns off the output, so the pullup
+	(or some other device) controls the signal.
+
+The same logic can be applied to emulate open source signaling, by driving the
+high signal and configuring the GPIO as input for low. This open drain/open
+source emulation can be handled transparently by the GPIO framework.
+
+If you are "driving" the signal high but gpiod_get_value(gpio) reports a low
+value (after the appropriate rise time passes), you know some other component is
+driving the shared signal low. That's not necessarily an error. As one common
+example, that's how I2C clocks are stretched:  a slave that needs a slower clock
+delays the rising edge of SCK, and the I2C master adjusts its signaling rate
+accordingly.