1 PINCTRL (PIN CONTROL) subsystem
2 This document outlines the pin control subsystem in Linux
4 This subsystem deals with:
6 - Enumerating and naming controllable pins
8 - Multiplexing of pins, pads, fingers (etc) see below for details
10 - Configuration of pins, pads, fingers (etc), such as software-controlled
11 biasing and driving mode specific pins, such as pull-up/down, open drain,
17 Definition of PIN CONTROLLER:
19 - A pin controller is a piece of hardware, usually a set of registers, that
20 can control PINs. It may be able to multiplex, bias, set load capacitance,
21 set drive strength, etc. for individual pins or groups of pins.
25 - PINS are equal to pads, fingers, balls or whatever packaging input or
26 output line you want to control and these are denoted by unsigned integers
27 in the range 0..maxpin. This numberspace is local to each PIN CONTROLLER, so
28 there may be several such number spaces in a system. This pin space may
29 be sparse - i.e. there may be gaps in the space with numbers where no
32 When a PIN CONTROLLER is instantiated, it will register a descriptor to the
33 pin control framework, and this descriptor contains an array of pin descriptors
34 describing the pins handled by this specific pin controller.
36 Here is an example of a PGA (Pin Grid Array) chip seen from underneath:
56 To register a pin controller and name all the pins on this package we can do
59 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinctrl.h>
61 const struct pinctrl_pin_desc foo_pins[] = {
66 PINCTRL_PIN(61, "F1"),
67 PINCTRL_PIN(62, "G1"),
68 PINCTRL_PIN(63, "H1"),
71 static struct pinctrl_desc foo_desc = {
74 .npins = ARRAY_SIZE(foo_pins),
78 int __init foo_probe(void)
80 struct pinctrl_dev *pctl;
82 pctl = pinctrl_register(&foo_desc, <PARENT>, NULL);
84 pr_err("could not register foo pin driver\n");
87 To enable the pinctrl subsystem and the subgroups for PINMUX and PINCONF and
88 selected drivers, you need to select them from your machine's Kconfig entry,
89 since these are so tightly integrated with the machines they are used on.
90 See for example arch/arm/mach-u300/Kconfig for an example.
92 Pins usually have fancier names than this. You can find these in the datasheet
93 for your chip. Notice that the core pinctrl.h file provides a fancy macro
94 called PINCTRL_PIN() to create the struct entries. As you can see I enumerated
95 the pins from 0 in the upper left corner to 63 in the lower right corner.
96 This enumeration was arbitrarily chosen, in practice you need to think
97 through your numbering system so that it matches the layout of registers
98 and such things in your driver, or the code may become complicated. You must
99 also consider matching of offsets to the GPIO ranges that may be handled by
102 For a padring with 467 pads, as opposed to actual pins, I used an enumeration
103 like this, walking around the edge of the chip, which seems to be industry
104 standard too (all these pads had names, too):
118 Many controllers need to deal with groups of pins, so the pin controller
119 subsystem has a mechanism for enumerating groups of pins and retrieving the
120 actual enumerated pins that are part of a certain group.
122 For example, say that we have a group of pins dealing with an SPI interface
123 on { 0, 8, 16, 24 }, and a group of pins dealing with an I2C interface on pins
126 These two groups are presented to the pin control subsystem by implementing
127 some generic pinctrl_ops like this:
129 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinctrl.h>
133 const unsigned int *pins;
134 const unsigned num_pins;
137 static const unsigned int spi0_pins[] = { 0, 8, 16, 24 };
138 static const unsigned int i2c0_pins[] = { 24, 25 };
140 static const struct foo_group foo_groups[] = {
144 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(spi0_pins),
149 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(i2c0_pins),
154 static int foo_get_groups_count(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev)
156 return ARRAY_SIZE(foo_groups);
159 static const char *foo_get_group_name(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
162 return foo_groups[selector].name;
165 static int foo_get_group_pins(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector,
166 const unsigned **pins,
169 *pins = (unsigned *) foo_groups[selector].pins;
170 *num_pins = foo_groups[selector].num_pins;
174 static struct pinctrl_ops foo_pctrl_ops = {
175 .get_groups_count = foo_get_groups_count,
176 .get_group_name = foo_get_group_name,
177 .get_group_pins = foo_get_group_pins,
181 static struct pinctrl_desc foo_desc = {
183 .pctlops = &foo_pctrl_ops,
186 The pin control subsystem will call the .get_groups_count() function to
187 determine the total number of legal selectors, then it will call the other functions
188 to retrieve the name and pins of the group. Maintaining the data structure of
189 the groups is up to the driver, this is just a simple example - in practice you
190 may need more entries in your group structure, for example specific register
191 ranges associated with each group and so on.
197 Pins can sometimes be software-configured in various ways, mostly related
198 to their electronic properties when used as inputs or outputs. For example you
199 may be able to make an output pin high impedance, or "tristate" meaning it is
200 effectively disconnected. You may be able to connect an input pin to VDD or GND
201 using a certain resistor value - pull up and pull down - so that the pin has a
202 stable value when nothing is driving the rail it is connected to, or when it's
205 Pin configuration can be programmed by adding configuration entries into the
206 mapping table; see section "Board/machine configuration" below.
208 The format and meaning of the configuration parameter, PLATFORM_X_PULL_UP
209 above, is entirely defined by the pin controller driver.
211 The pin configuration driver implements callbacks for changing pin
212 configuration in the pin controller ops like this:
214 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinctrl.h>
215 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinconf.h>
216 #include "platform_x_pindefs.h"
218 static int foo_pin_config_get(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
220 unsigned long *config)
222 struct my_conftype conf;
224 ... Find setting for pin @ offset ...
226 *config = (unsigned long) conf;
229 static int foo_pin_config_set(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
231 unsigned long config)
233 struct my_conftype *conf = (struct my_conftype *) config;
236 case PLATFORM_X_PULL_UP:
242 static int foo_pin_config_group_get (struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
244 unsigned long *config)
249 static int foo_pin_config_group_set (struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
251 unsigned long config)
256 static struct pinconf_ops foo_pconf_ops = {
257 .pin_config_get = foo_pin_config_get,
258 .pin_config_set = foo_pin_config_set,
259 .pin_config_group_get = foo_pin_config_group_get,
260 .pin_config_group_set = foo_pin_config_group_set,
263 /* Pin config operations are handled by some pin controller */
264 static struct pinctrl_desc foo_desc = {
266 .confops = &foo_pconf_ops,
269 Since some controllers have special logic for handling entire groups of pins
270 they can exploit the special whole-group pin control function. The
271 pin_config_group_set() callback is allowed to return the error code -EAGAIN,
272 for groups it does not want to handle, or if it just wants to do some
273 group-level handling and then fall through to iterate over all pins, in which
274 case each individual pin will be treated by separate pin_config_set() calls as
278 Interaction with the GPIO subsystem
279 ===================================
281 The GPIO drivers may want to perform operations of various types on the same
282 physical pins that are also registered as pin controller pins.
284 First and foremost, the two subsystems can be used as completely orthogonal,
285 see the section named "pin control requests from drivers" and
286 "drivers needing both pin control and GPIOs" below for details. But in some
287 situations a cross-subsystem mapping between pins and GPIOs is needed.
289 Since the pin controller subsystem have its pinspace local to the pin
290 controller we need a mapping so that the pin control subsystem can figure out
291 which pin controller handles control of a certain GPIO pin. Since a single
292 pin controller may be muxing several GPIO ranges (typically SoCs that have
293 one set of pins, but internally several GPIO silicon blocks, each modelled as
294 a struct gpio_chip) any number of GPIO ranges can be added to a pin controller
297 struct gpio_chip chip_a;
298 struct gpio_chip chip_b;
300 static struct pinctrl_gpio_range gpio_range_a = {
309 static struct pinctrl_gpio_range gpio_range_b = {
319 struct pinctrl_dev *pctl;
321 pinctrl_add_gpio_range(pctl, &gpio_range_a);
322 pinctrl_add_gpio_range(pctl, &gpio_range_b);
325 So this complex system has one pin controller handling two different
326 GPIO chips. "chip a" has 16 pins and "chip b" has 8 pins. The "chip a" and
327 "chip b" have different .pin_base, which means a start pin number of the
330 The GPIO range of "chip a" starts from the GPIO base of 32 and actual
331 pin range also starts from 32. However "chip b" has different starting
332 offset for the GPIO range and pin range. The GPIO range of "chip b" starts
333 from GPIO number 48, while the pin range of "chip b" starts from 64.
335 We can convert a gpio number to actual pin number using this "pin_base".
336 They are mapped in the global GPIO pin space at:
339 - GPIO range : [32 .. 47]
340 - pin range : [32 .. 47]
342 - GPIO range : [48 .. 55]
343 - pin range : [64 .. 71]
345 The above examples assume the mapping between the GPIOs and pins is
346 linear. If the mapping is sparse or haphazard, an array of arbitrary pin
347 numbers can be encoded in the range like this:
349 static const unsigned range_pins[] = { 14, 1, 22, 17, 10, 8, 6, 2 };
351 static struct pinctrl_gpio_range gpio_range = {
356 .npins = ARRAY_SIZE(range_pins),
360 In this case the pin_base property will be ignored. If the name of a pin
361 group is known, the pins and npins elements of the above structure can be
362 initialised using the function pinctrl_get_group_pins(), e.g. for pin
365 pinctrl_get_group_pins(pctl, "foo", &gpio_range.pins, &gpio_range.npins);
367 When GPIO-specific functions in the pin control subsystem are called, these
368 ranges will be used to look up the appropriate pin controller by inspecting
369 and matching the pin to the pin ranges across all controllers. When a
370 pin controller handling the matching range is found, GPIO-specific functions
371 will be called on that specific pin controller.
373 For all functionalities dealing with pin biasing, pin muxing etc, the pin
374 controller subsystem will look up the corresponding pin number from the passed
375 in gpio number, and use the range's internals to retrieve a pin number. After
376 that, the subsystem passes it on to the pin control driver, so the driver
377 will get a pin number into its handled number range. Further it is also passed
378 the range ID value, so that the pin controller knows which range it should
381 Calling pinctrl_add_gpio_range from pinctrl driver is DEPRECATED. Please see
382 section 2.1 of Documentation/devicetree/bindings/gpio/gpio.txt on how to bind
383 pinctrl and gpio drivers.
389 These calls use the pinmux_* naming prefix. No other calls should use that
396 PINMUX, also known as padmux, ballmux, alternate functions or mission modes
397 is a way for chip vendors producing some kind of electrical packages to use
398 a certain physical pin (ball, pad, finger, etc) for multiple mutually exclusive
399 functions, depending on the application. By "application" in this context
400 we usually mean a way of soldering or wiring the package into an electronic
401 system, even though the framework makes it possible to also change the function
404 Here is an example of a PGA (Pin Grid Array) chip seen from underneath:
408 8 | o | o o o o o o o
410 7 | o | o o o o o o o
412 6 | o | o o o o o o o
414 5 | o | o | o o o o o o
416 4 o o o o o o | o | o
418 3 o o o o o o | o | o
420 2 o o o o o o | o | o
421 +-------+-------+-------+---+---+
422 1 | o o | o o | o o | o | o |
423 +-------+-------+-------+---+---+
425 This is not tetris. The game to think of is chess. Not all PGA/BGA packages
426 are chessboard-like, big ones have "holes" in some arrangement according to
427 different design patterns, but we're using this as a simple example. Of the
428 pins you see some will be taken by things like a few VCC and GND to feed power
429 to the chip, and quite a few will be taken by large ports like an external
430 memory interface. The remaining pins will often be subject to pin multiplexing.
432 The example 8x8 PGA package above will have pin numbers 0 through 63 assigned
433 to its physical pins. It will name the pins { A1, A2, A3 ... H6, H7, H8 } using
434 pinctrl_register_pins() and a suitable data set as shown earlier.
436 In this 8x8 BGA package the pins { A8, A7, A6, A5 } can be used as an SPI port
437 (these are four pins: CLK, RXD, TXD, FRM). In that case, pin B5 can be used as
438 some general-purpose GPIO pin. However, in another setting, pins { A5, B5 } can
439 be used as an I2C port (these are just two pins: SCL, SDA). Needless to say,
440 we cannot use the SPI port and I2C port at the same time. However in the inside
441 of the package the silicon performing the SPI logic can alternatively be routed
442 out on pins { G4, G3, G2, G1 }.
444 On the bottom row at { A1, B1, C1, D1, E1, F1, G1, H1 } we have something
445 special - it's an external MMC bus that can be 2, 4 or 8 bits wide, and it will
446 consume 2, 4 or 8 pins respectively, so either { A1, B1 } are taken or
447 { A1, B1, C1, D1 } or all of them. If we use all 8 bits, we cannot use the SPI
448 port on pins { G4, G3, G2, G1 } of course.
450 This way the silicon blocks present inside the chip can be multiplexed "muxed"
451 out on different pin ranges. Often contemporary SoC (systems on chip) will
452 contain several I2C, SPI, SDIO/MMC, etc silicon blocks that can be routed to
453 different pins by pinmux settings.
455 Since general-purpose I/O pins (GPIO) are typically always in shortage, it is
456 common to be able to use almost any pin as a GPIO pin if it is not currently
457 in use by some other I/O port.
463 The purpose of the pinmux functionality in the pin controller subsystem is to
464 abstract and provide pinmux settings to the devices you choose to instantiate
465 in your machine configuration. It is inspired by the clk, GPIO and regulator
466 subsystems, so devices will request their mux setting, but it's also possible
467 to request a single pin for e.g. GPIO.
471 - FUNCTIONS can be switched in and out by a driver residing with the pin
472 control subsystem in the drivers/pinctrl/* directory of the kernel. The
473 pin control driver knows the possible functions. In the example above you can
474 identify three pinmux functions, one for spi, one for i2c and one for mmc.
476 - FUNCTIONS are assumed to be enumerable from zero in a one-dimensional array.
477 In this case the array could be something like: { spi0, i2c0, mmc0 }
478 for the three available functions.
480 - FUNCTIONS have PIN GROUPS as defined on the generic level - so a certain
481 function is *always* associated with a certain set of pin groups, could
482 be just a single one, but could also be many. In the example above the
483 function i2c is associated with the pins { A5, B5 }, enumerated as
484 { 24, 25 } in the controller pin space.
486 The Function spi is associated with pin groups { A8, A7, A6, A5 }
487 and { G4, G3, G2, G1 }, which are enumerated as { 0, 8, 16, 24 } and
488 { 38, 46, 54, 62 } respectively.
490 Group names must be unique per pin controller, no two groups on the same
491 controller may have the same name.
493 - The combination of a FUNCTION and a PIN GROUP determine a certain function
494 for a certain set of pins. The knowledge of the functions and pin groups
495 and their machine-specific particulars are kept inside the pinmux driver,
496 from the outside only the enumerators are known, and the driver core can:
498 - Request the name of a function with a certain selector (>= 0)
499 - A list of groups associated with a certain function
500 - Request that a certain group in that list to be activated for a certain
503 As already described above, pin groups are in turn self-descriptive, so
504 the core will retrieve the actual pin range in a certain group from the
507 - FUNCTIONS and GROUPS on a certain PIN CONTROLLER are MAPPED to a certain
508 device by the board file, device tree or similar machine setup configuration
509 mechanism, similar to how regulators are connected to devices, usually by
510 name. Defining a pin controller, function and group thus uniquely identify
511 the set of pins to be used by a certain device. (If only one possible group
512 of pins is available for the function, no group name need to be supplied -
513 the core will simply select the first and only group available.)
515 In the example case we can define that this particular machine shall
516 use device spi0 with pinmux function fspi0 group gspi0 and i2c0 on function
517 fi2c0 group gi2c0, on the primary pin controller, we get mappings
521 {"map-spi0", spi0, pinctrl0, fspi0, gspi0},
522 {"map-i2c0", i2c0, pinctrl0, fi2c0, gi2c0}
525 Every map must be assigned a state name, pin controller, device and
526 function. The group is not compulsory - if it is omitted the first group
527 presented by the driver as applicable for the function will be selected,
528 which is useful for simple cases.
530 It is possible to map several groups to the same combination of device,
531 pin controller and function. This is for cases where a certain function on
532 a certain pin controller may use different sets of pins in different
535 - PINS for a certain FUNCTION using a certain PIN GROUP on a certain
536 PIN CONTROLLER are provided on a first-come first-serve basis, so if some
537 other device mux setting or GPIO pin request has already taken your physical
538 pin, you will be denied the use of it. To get (activate) a new setting, the
539 old one has to be put (deactivated) first.
541 Sometimes the documentation and hardware registers will be oriented around
542 pads (or "fingers") rather than pins - these are the soldering surfaces on the
543 silicon inside the package, and may or may not match the actual number of
544 pins/balls underneath the capsule. Pick some enumeration that makes sense to
545 you. Define enumerators only for the pins you can control if that makes sense.
549 We assume that the number of possible function maps to pin groups is limited by
550 the hardware. I.e. we assume that there is no system where any function can be
551 mapped to any pin, like in a phone exchange. So the available pin groups for
552 a certain function will be limited to a few choices (say up to eight or so),
553 not hundreds or any amount of choices. This is the characteristic we have found
554 by inspecting available pinmux hardware, and a necessary assumption since we
555 expect pinmux drivers to present *all* possible function vs pin group mappings
562 The pinmux core takes care of preventing conflicts on pins and calling
563 the pin controller driver to execute different settings.
565 It is the responsibility of the pinmux driver to impose further restrictions
566 (say for example infer electronic limitations due to load, etc.) to determine
567 whether or not the requested function can actually be allowed, and in case it
568 is possible to perform the requested mux setting, poke the hardware so that
571 Pinmux drivers are required to supply a few callback functions, some are
572 optional. Usually the set_mux() function is implemented, writing values into
573 some certain registers to activate a certain mux setting for a certain pin.
575 A simple driver for the above example will work by setting bits 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4
576 into some register named MUX to select a certain function with a certain
577 group of pins would work something like this:
579 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinctrl.h>
580 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinmux.h>
584 const unsigned int *pins;
585 const unsigned num_pins;
588 static const unsigned spi0_0_pins[] = { 0, 8, 16, 24 };
589 static const unsigned spi0_1_pins[] = { 38, 46, 54, 62 };
590 static const unsigned i2c0_pins[] = { 24, 25 };
591 static const unsigned mmc0_1_pins[] = { 56, 57 };
592 static const unsigned mmc0_2_pins[] = { 58, 59 };
593 static const unsigned mmc0_3_pins[] = { 60, 61, 62, 63 };
595 static const struct foo_group foo_groups[] = {
597 .name = "spi0_0_grp",
599 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(spi0_0_pins),
602 .name = "spi0_1_grp",
604 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(spi0_1_pins),
609 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(i2c0_pins),
612 .name = "mmc0_1_grp",
614 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(mmc0_1_pins),
617 .name = "mmc0_2_grp",
619 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(mmc0_2_pins),
622 .name = "mmc0_3_grp",
624 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(mmc0_3_pins),
629 static int foo_get_groups_count(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev)
631 return ARRAY_SIZE(foo_groups);
634 static const char *foo_get_group_name(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
637 return foo_groups[selector].name;
640 static int foo_get_group_pins(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector,
641 unsigned ** const pins,
642 unsigned * const num_pins)
644 *pins = (unsigned *) foo_groups[selector].pins;
645 *num_pins = foo_groups[selector].num_pins;
649 static struct pinctrl_ops foo_pctrl_ops = {
650 .get_groups_count = foo_get_groups_count,
651 .get_group_name = foo_get_group_name,
652 .get_group_pins = foo_get_group_pins,
655 struct foo_pmx_func {
657 const char * const *groups;
658 const unsigned num_groups;
661 static const char * const spi0_groups[] = { "spi0_0_grp", "spi0_1_grp" };
662 static const char * const i2c0_groups[] = { "i2c0_grp" };
663 static const char * const mmc0_groups[] = { "mmc0_1_grp", "mmc0_2_grp",
666 static const struct foo_pmx_func foo_functions[] = {
669 .groups = spi0_groups,
670 .num_groups = ARRAY_SIZE(spi0_groups),
674 .groups = i2c0_groups,
675 .num_groups = ARRAY_SIZE(i2c0_groups),
679 .groups = mmc0_groups,
680 .num_groups = ARRAY_SIZE(mmc0_groups),
684 static int foo_get_functions_count(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev)
686 return ARRAY_SIZE(foo_functions);
689 static const char *foo_get_fname(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector)
691 return foo_functions[selector].name;
694 static int foo_get_groups(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector,
695 const char * const **groups,
696 unsigned * const num_groups)
698 *groups = foo_functions[selector].groups;
699 *num_groups = foo_functions[selector].num_groups;
703 static int foo_set_mux(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector,
706 u8 regbit = (1 << selector + group);
708 writeb((readb(MUX)|regbit), MUX)
712 static struct pinmux_ops foo_pmxops = {
713 .get_functions_count = foo_get_functions_count,
714 .get_function_name = foo_get_fname,
715 .get_function_groups = foo_get_groups,
716 .set_mux = foo_set_mux,
719 /* Pinmux operations are handled by some pin controller */
720 static struct pinctrl_desc foo_desc = {
722 .pctlops = &foo_pctrl_ops,
723 .pmxops = &foo_pmxops,
726 In the example activating muxing 0 and 1 at the same time setting bits
727 0 and 1, uses one pin in common so they would collide.
729 The beauty of the pinmux subsystem is that since it keeps track of all
730 pins and who is using them, it will already have denied an impossible
731 request like that, so the driver does not need to worry about such
732 things - when it gets a selector passed in, the pinmux subsystem makes
733 sure no other device or GPIO assignment is already using the selected
734 pins. Thus bits 0 and 1 in the control register will never be set at the
737 All the above functions are mandatory to implement for a pinmux driver.
740 Pin control interaction with the GPIO subsystem
741 ===============================================
743 Note that the following implies that the use case is to use a certain pin
744 from the Linux kernel using the API in <linux/gpio.h> with gpio_request()
745 and similar functions. There are cases where you may be using something
746 that your datasheet calls "GPIO mode", but actually is just an electrical
747 configuration for a certain device. See the section below named
748 "GPIO mode pitfalls" for more details on this scenario.
750 The public pinmux API contains two functions named pinctrl_request_gpio()
751 and pinctrl_free_gpio(). These two functions shall *ONLY* be called from
752 gpiolib-based drivers as part of their gpio_request() and
753 gpio_free() semantics. Likewise the pinctrl_gpio_direction_[input|output]
754 shall only be called from within respective gpio_direction_[input|output]
755 gpiolib implementation.
757 NOTE that platforms and individual drivers shall *NOT* request GPIO pins to be
758 controlled e.g. muxed in. Instead, implement a proper gpiolib driver and have
759 that driver request proper muxing and other control for its pins.
761 The function list could become long, especially if you can convert every
762 individual pin into a GPIO pin independent of any other pins, and then try
763 the approach to define every pin as a function.
765 In this case, the function array would become 64 entries for each GPIO
766 setting and then the device functions.
768 For this reason there are two functions a pin control driver can implement
769 to enable only GPIO on an individual pin: .gpio_request_enable() and
770 .gpio_disable_free().
772 This function will pass in the affected GPIO range identified by the pin
773 controller core, so you know which GPIO pins are being affected by the request
776 If your driver needs to have an indication from the framework of whether the
777 GPIO pin shall be used for input or output you can implement the
778 .gpio_set_direction() function. As described this shall be called from the
779 gpiolib driver and the affected GPIO range, pin offset and desired direction
780 will be passed along to this function.
782 Alternatively to using these special functions, it is fully allowed to use
783 named functions for each GPIO pin, the pinctrl_request_gpio() will attempt to
784 obtain the function "gpioN" where "N" is the global GPIO pin number if no
785 special GPIO-handler is registered.
791 Due to the naming conventions used by hardware engineers, where "GPIO"
792 is taken to mean different things than what the kernel does, the developer
793 may be confused by a datasheet talking about a pin being possible to set
794 into "GPIO mode". It appears that what hardware engineers mean with
795 "GPIO mode" is not necessarily the use case that is implied in the kernel
796 interface <linux/gpio.h>: a pin that you grab from kernel code and then
797 either listen for input or drive high/low to assert/deassert some
800 Rather hardware engineers think that "GPIO mode" means that you can
801 software-control a few electrical properties of the pin that you would
802 not be able to control if the pin was in some other mode, such as muxed in
805 The GPIO portions of a pin and its relation to a certain pin controller
806 configuration and muxing logic can be constructed in several ways. Here
813 Physical pins --- pad --- pinmux -+- I2C
820 Here some electrical properties of the pin can be configured no matter
821 whether the pin is used for GPIO or not. If you multiplex a GPIO onto a
822 pin, you can also drive it high/low from "GPIO" registers.
823 Alternatively, the pin can be controlled by a certain peripheral, while
824 still applying desired pin config properties. GPIO functionality is thus
825 orthogonal to any other device using the pin.
827 In this arrangement the registers for the GPIO portions of the pin controller,
828 or the registers for the GPIO hardware module are likely to reside in a
829 separate memory range only intended for GPIO driving, and the register
830 range dealing with pin config and pin multiplexing get placed into a
831 different memory range and a separate section of the data sheet.
838 Physical pins --- pad --- pinmux -+- I2C
845 In this arrangement, the GPIO functionality can always be enabled, such that
846 e.g. a GPIO input can be used to "spy" on the SPI/I2C/MMC signal while it is
847 pulsed out. It is likely possible to disrupt the traffic on the pin by doing
848 wrong things on the GPIO block, as it is never really disconnected. It is
849 possible that the GPIO, pin config and pin multiplex registers are placed into
850 the same memory range and the same section of the data sheet, although that
851 need not be the case.
853 From a kernel point of view, however, these are different aspects of the
854 hardware and shall be put into different subsystems:
856 - Registers (or fields within registers) that control electrical
857 properties of the pin such as biasing and drive strength should be
858 exposed through the pinctrl subsystem, as "pin configuration" settings.
860 - Registers (or fields within registers) that control muxing of signals
861 from various other HW blocks (e.g. I2C, MMC, or GPIO) onto pins should
862 be exposed through the pinctrl subsystem, as mux functions.
864 - Registers (or fields within registers) that control GPIO functionality
865 such as setting a GPIO's output value, reading a GPIO's input value, or
866 setting GPIO pin direction should be exposed through the GPIO subsystem,
867 and if they also support interrupt capabilities, through the irqchip
870 Depending on the exact HW register design, some functions exposed by the
871 GPIO subsystem may call into the pinctrl subsystem in order to
872 co-ordinate register settings across HW modules. In particular, this may
873 be needed for HW with separate GPIO and pin controller HW modules, where
874 e.g. GPIO direction is determined by a register in the pin controller HW
875 module rather than the GPIO HW module.
877 Electrical properties of the pin such as biasing and drive strength
878 may be placed at some pin-specific register in all cases or as part
879 of the GPIO register in case (B) especially. This doesn't mean that such
880 properties necessarily pertain to what the Linux kernel calls "GPIO".
882 Example: a pin is usually muxed in to be used as a UART TX line. But during
883 system sleep, we need to put this pin into "GPIO mode" and ground it.
885 If you make a 1-to-1 map to the GPIO subsystem for this pin, you may start
886 to think that you need to come up with something really complex, that the
887 pin shall be used for UART TX and GPIO at the same time, that you will grab
888 a pin control handle and set it to a certain state to enable UART TX to be
889 muxed in, then twist it over to GPIO mode and use gpio_direction_output()
890 to drive it low during sleep, then mux it over to UART TX again when you
891 wake up and maybe even gpio_request/gpio_free as part of this cycle. This
892 all gets very complicated.
894 The solution is to not think that what the datasheet calls "GPIO mode"
895 has to be handled by the <linux/gpio.h> interface. Instead view this as
896 a certain pin config setting. Look in e.g. <linux/pinctrl/pinconf-generic.h>
897 and you find this in the documentation:
899 PIN_CONFIG_OUTPUT: this will configure the pin in output, use argument
900 1 to indicate high level, argument 0 to indicate low level.
902 So it is perfectly possible to push a pin into "GPIO mode" and drive the
903 line low as part of the usual pin control map. So for example your UART
904 driver may look like this:
906 #include <linux/pinctrl/consumer.h>
908 struct pinctrl *pinctrl;
909 struct pinctrl_state *pins_default;
910 struct pinctrl_state *pins_sleep;
912 pins_default = pinctrl_lookup_state(uap->pinctrl, PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT);
913 pins_sleep = pinctrl_lookup_state(uap->pinctrl, PINCTRL_STATE_SLEEP);
916 retval = pinctrl_select_state(pinctrl, pins_default);
918 retval = pinctrl_select_state(pinctrl, pins_sleep);
920 And your machine configuration may look like this:
921 --------------------------------------------------
923 static unsigned long uart_default_mode[] = {
924 PIN_CONF_PACKED(PIN_CONFIG_DRIVE_PUSH_PULL, 0),
927 static unsigned long uart_sleep_mode[] = {
928 PIN_CONF_PACKED(PIN_CONFIG_OUTPUT, 0),
931 static struct pinctrl_map pinmap[] __initdata = {
932 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT, "pinctrl-foo",
934 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_PIN("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT, "pinctrl-foo",
935 "UART_TX_PIN", uart_default_mode),
936 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_SLEEP, "pinctrl-foo",
937 "u0_group", "gpio-mode"),
938 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_PIN("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_SLEEP, "pinctrl-foo",
939 "UART_TX_PIN", uart_sleep_mode),
943 pinctrl_register_mappings(pinmap, ARRAY_SIZE(pinmap));
946 Here the pins we want to control are in the "u0_group" and there is some
947 function called "u0" that can be enabled on this group of pins, and then
948 everything is UART business as usual. But there is also some function
949 named "gpio-mode" that can be mapped onto the same pins to move them into
952 This will give the desired effect without any bogus interaction with the
953 GPIO subsystem. It is just an electrical configuration used by that device
954 when going to sleep, it might imply that the pin is set into something the
955 datasheet calls "GPIO mode", but that is not the point: it is still used
956 by that UART device to control the pins that pertain to that very UART
957 driver, putting them into modes needed by the UART. GPIO in the Linux
958 kernel sense are just some 1-bit line, and is a different use case.
960 How the registers are poked to attain the push or pull, and output low
961 configuration and the muxing of the "u0" or "gpio-mode" group onto these
962 pins is a question for the driver.
964 Some datasheets will be more helpful and refer to the "GPIO mode" as
965 "low power mode" rather than anything to do with GPIO. This often means
966 the same thing electrically speaking, but in this latter case the
967 software engineers will usually quickly identify that this is some
968 specific muxing or configuration rather than anything related to the GPIO
972 Board/machine configuration
973 ==================================
975 Boards and machines define how a certain complete running system is put
976 together, including how GPIOs and devices are muxed, how regulators are
977 constrained and how the clock tree looks. Of course pinmux settings are also
980 A pin controller configuration for a machine looks pretty much like a simple
981 regulator configuration, so for the example array above we want to enable i2c
982 and spi on the second function mapping:
984 #include <linux/pinctrl/machine.h>
986 static const struct pinctrl_map mapping[] __initconst = {
988 .dev_name = "foo-spi.0",
989 .name = PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
990 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
991 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
992 .data.mux.function = "spi0",
995 .dev_name = "foo-i2c.0",
996 .name = PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
997 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
998 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
999 .data.mux.function = "i2c0",
1002 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1003 .name = PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1004 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1005 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1006 .data.mux.function = "mmc0",
1010 The dev_name here matches to the unique device name that can be used to look
1011 up the device struct (just like with clockdev or regulators). The function name
1012 must match a function provided by the pinmux driver handling this pin range.
1014 As you can see we may have several pin controllers on the system and thus
1015 we need to specify which one of them contains the functions we wish to map.
1017 You register this pinmux mapping to the pinmux subsystem by simply:
1019 ret = pinctrl_register_mappings(mapping, ARRAY_SIZE(mapping));
1021 Since the above construct is pretty common there is a helper macro to make
1022 it even more compact which assumes you want to use pinctrl-foo and position
1023 0 for mapping, for example:
1025 static struct pinctrl_map mapping[] __initdata = {
1026 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP("foo-i2c.o", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT, "pinctrl-foo", NULL, "i2c0"),
1029 The mapping table may also contain pin configuration entries. It's common for
1030 each pin/group to have a number of configuration entries that affect it, so
1031 the table entries for configuration reference an array of config parameters
1032 and values. An example using the convenience macros is shown below:
1034 static unsigned long i2c_grp_configs[] = {
1039 static unsigned long i2c_pin_configs[] = {
1044 static struct pinctrl_map mapping[] __initdata = {
1045 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT, "pinctrl-foo", "i2c0", "i2c0"),
1046 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_GROUP("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT, "pinctrl-foo", "i2c0", i2c_grp_configs),
1047 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_PIN("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT, "pinctrl-foo", "i2c0scl", i2c_pin_configs),
1048 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_PIN("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT, "pinctrl-foo", "i2c0sda", i2c_pin_configs),
1051 Finally, some devices expect the mapping table to contain certain specific
1052 named states. When running on hardware that doesn't need any pin controller
1053 configuration, the mapping table must still contain those named states, in
1054 order to explicitly indicate that the states were provided and intended to
1055 be empty. Table entry macro PIN_MAP_DUMMY_STATE serves the purpose of defining
1056 a named state without causing any pin controller to be programmed:
1058 static struct pinctrl_map mapping[] __initdata = {
1059 PIN_MAP_DUMMY_STATE("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT),
1066 As it is possible to map a function to different groups of pins an optional
1067 .group can be specified like this:
1071 .dev_name = "foo-spi.0",
1072 .name = "spi0-pos-A",
1073 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1074 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1076 .group = "spi0_0_grp",
1079 .dev_name = "foo-spi.0",
1080 .name = "spi0-pos-B",
1081 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1082 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1084 .group = "spi0_1_grp",
1088 This example mapping is used to switch between two positions for spi0 at
1089 runtime, as described further below under the heading "Runtime pinmuxing".
1091 Further it is possible for one named state to affect the muxing of several
1092 groups of pins, say for example in the mmc0 example above, where you can
1093 additively expand the mmc0 bus from 2 to 4 to 8 pins. If we want to use all
1094 three groups for a total of 2+2+4 = 8 pins (for an 8-bit MMC bus as is the
1095 case), we define a mapping like this:
1099 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1101 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1102 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1104 .group = "mmc0_1_grp",
1107 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1109 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1110 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1112 .group = "mmc0_1_grp",
1115 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1117 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1118 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1120 .group = "mmc0_2_grp",
1123 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1125 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1126 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1128 .group = "mmc0_1_grp",
1131 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1133 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1134 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1136 .group = "mmc0_2_grp",
1139 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1141 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1142 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1144 .group = "mmc0_3_grp",
1148 The result of grabbing this mapping from the device with something like
1149 this (see next paragraph):
1151 p = devm_pinctrl_get(dev);
1152 s = pinctrl_lookup_state(p, "8bit");
1153 ret = pinctrl_select_state(p, s);
1157 p = devm_pinctrl_get_select(dev, "8bit");
1159 Will be that you activate all the three bottom records in the mapping at
1160 once. Since they share the same name, pin controller device, function and
1161 device, and since we allow multiple groups to match to a single device, they
1162 all get selected, and they all get enabled and disable simultaneously by the
1166 Pin control requests from drivers
1167 =================================
1169 When a device driver is about to probe the device core will automatically
1170 attempt to issue pinctrl_get_select_default() on these devices.
1171 This way driver writers do not need to add any of the boilerplate code
1172 of the type found below. However when doing fine-grained state selection
1173 and not using the "default" state, you may have to do some device driver
1174 handling of the pinctrl handles and states.
1176 So if you just want to put the pins for a certain device into the default
1177 state and be done with it, there is nothing you need to do besides
1178 providing the proper mapping table. The device core will take care of
1181 Generally it is discouraged to let individual drivers get and enable pin
1182 control. So if possible, handle the pin control in platform code or some other
1183 place where you have access to all the affected struct device * pointers. In
1184 some cases where a driver needs to e.g. switch between different mux mappings
1185 at runtime this is not possible.
1187 A typical case is if a driver needs to switch bias of pins from normal
1188 operation and going to sleep, moving from the PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT to
1189 PINCTRL_STATE_SLEEP at runtime, re-biasing or even re-muxing pins to save
1190 current in sleep mode.
1192 A driver may request a certain control state to be activated, usually just the
1193 default state like this:
1195 #include <linux/pinctrl/consumer.h>
1199 struct pinctrl_state *s;
1205 /* Allocate a state holder named "foo" etc */
1206 struct foo_state *foo = ...;
1208 foo->p = devm_pinctrl_get(&device);
1209 if (IS_ERR(foo->p)) {
1210 /* FIXME: clean up "foo" here */
1211 return PTR_ERR(foo->p);
1214 foo->s = pinctrl_lookup_state(foo->p, PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT);
1215 if (IS_ERR(foo->s)) {
1216 /* FIXME: clean up "foo" here */
1220 ret = pinctrl_select_state(foo->s);
1222 /* FIXME: clean up "foo" here */
1227 This get/lookup/select/put sequence can just as well be handled by bus drivers
1228 if you don't want each and every driver to handle it and you know the
1229 arrangement on your bus.
1231 The semantics of the pinctrl APIs are:
1233 - pinctrl_get() is called in process context to obtain a handle to all pinctrl
1234 information for a given client device. It will allocate a struct from the
1235 kernel memory to hold the pinmux state. All mapping table parsing or similar
1236 slow operations take place within this API.
1238 - devm_pinctrl_get() is a variant of pinctrl_get() that causes pinctrl_put()
1239 to be called automatically on the retrieved pointer when the associated
1240 device is removed. It is recommended to use this function over plain
1243 - pinctrl_lookup_state() is called in process context to obtain a handle to a
1244 specific state for a client device. This operation may be slow, too.
1246 - pinctrl_select_state() programs pin controller hardware according to the
1247 definition of the state as given by the mapping table. In theory, this is a
1248 fast-path operation, since it only involved blasting some register settings
1249 into hardware. However, note that some pin controllers may have their
1250 registers on a slow/IRQ-based bus, so client devices should not assume they
1251 can call pinctrl_select_state() from non-blocking contexts.
1253 - pinctrl_put() frees all information associated with a pinctrl handle.
1255 - devm_pinctrl_put() is a variant of pinctrl_put() that may be used to
1256 explicitly destroy a pinctrl object returned by devm_pinctrl_get().
1257 However, use of this function will be rare, due to the automatic cleanup
1258 that will occur even without calling it.
1260 pinctrl_get() must be paired with a plain pinctrl_put().
1261 pinctrl_get() may not be paired with devm_pinctrl_put().
1262 devm_pinctrl_get() can optionally be paired with devm_pinctrl_put().
1263 devm_pinctrl_get() may not be paired with plain pinctrl_put().
1265 Usually the pin control core handled the get/put pair and call out to the
1266 device drivers bookkeeping operations, like checking available functions and
1267 the associated pins, whereas select_state pass on to the pin controller
1268 driver which takes care of activating and/or deactivating the mux setting by
1269 quickly poking some registers.
1271 The pins are allocated for your device when you issue the devm_pinctrl_get()
1272 call, after this you should be able to see this in the debugfs listing of all
1275 NOTE: the pinctrl system will return -EPROBE_DEFER if it cannot find the
1276 requested pinctrl handles, for example if the pinctrl driver has not yet
1277 registered. Thus make sure that the error path in your driver gracefully
1278 cleans up and is ready to retry the probing later in the startup process.
1281 Drivers needing both pin control and GPIOs
1282 ==========================================
1284 Again, it is discouraged to let drivers lookup and select pin control states
1285 themselves, but again sometimes this is unavoidable.
1287 So say that your driver is fetching its resources like this:
1289 #include <linux/pinctrl/consumer.h>
1290 #include <linux/gpio.h>
1292 struct pinctrl *pinctrl;
1295 pinctrl = devm_pinctrl_get_select_default(&dev);
1296 gpio = devm_gpio_request(&dev, 14, "foo");
1298 Here we first request a certain pin state and then request GPIO 14 to be
1299 used. If you're using the subsystems orthogonally like this, you should
1300 nominally always get your pinctrl handle and select the desired pinctrl
1301 state BEFORE requesting the GPIO. This is a semantic convention to avoid
1302 situations that can be electrically unpleasant, you will certainly want to
1303 mux in and bias pins in a certain way before the GPIO subsystems starts to
1306 The above can be hidden: using the device core, the pinctrl core may be
1307 setting up the config and muxing for the pins right before the device is
1308 probing, nevertheless orthogonal to the GPIO subsystem.
1310 But there are also situations where it makes sense for the GPIO subsystem
1311 to communicate directly with the pinctrl subsystem, using the latter as a
1312 back-end. This is when the GPIO driver may call out to the functions
1313 described in the section "Pin control interaction with the GPIO subsystem"
1314 above. This only involves per-pin multiplexing, and will be completely
1315 hidden behind the gpio_*() function namespace. In this case, the driver
1316 need not interact with the pin control subsystem at all.
1318 If a pin control driver and a GPIO driver is dealing with the same pins
1319 and the use cases involve multiplexing, you MUST implement the pin controller
1320 as a back-end for the GPIO driver like this, unless your hardware design
1321 is such that the GPIO controller can override the pin controller's
1322 multiplexing state through hardware without the need to interact with the
1326 System pin control hogging
1327 ==========================
1329 Pin control map entries can be hogged by the core when the pin controller
1330 is registered. This means that the core will attempt to call pinctrl_get(),
1331 lookup_state() and select_state() on it immediately after the pin control
1332 device has been registered.
1334 This occurs for mapping table entries where the client device name is equal
1335 to the pin controller device name, and the state name is PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT.
1338 .dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1339 .name = PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1340 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1341 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1342 .function = "power_func",
1345 Since it may be common to request the core to hog a few always-applicable
1346 mux settings on the primary pin controller, there is a convenience macro for
1349 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP_HOG_DEFAULT("pinctrl-foo", NULL /* group */, "power_func")
1351 This gives the exact same result as the above construction.
1357 It is possible to mux a certain function in and out at runtime, say to move
1358 an SPI port from one set of pins to another set of pins. Say for example for
1359 spi0 in the example above, we expose two different groups of pins for the same
1360 function, but with different named in the mapping as described under
1361 "Advanced mapping" above. So that for an SPI device, we have two states named
1362 "pos-A" and "pos-B".
1364 This snippet first initializes a state object for both groups (in foo_probe()),
1365 then muxes the function in the pins defined by group A, and finally muxes it in
1366 on the pins defined by group B:
1368 #include <linux/pinctrl/consumer.h>
1371 struct pinctrl_state *s1, *s2;
1376 p = devm_pinctrl_get(&device);
1380 s1 = pinctrl_lookup_state(foo->p, "pos-A");
1384 s2 = pinctrl_lookup_state(foo->p, "pos-B");
1391 /* Enable on position A */
1392 ret = pinctrl_select_state(s1);
1398 /* Enable on position B */
1399 ret = pinctrl_select_state(s2);
1406 The above has to be done from process context. The reservation of the pins
1407 will be done when the state is activated, so in effect one specific pin
1408 can be used by different functions at different times on a running system.