| Message ID | 1444142640-14721-3-git-send-email-lee.jones@linaro.org |
|---|---|
| State | New |
| Headers | show |
On Tue, Oct 06, 2015 at 03:44:00PM +0100, Lee Jones wrote: > Samples are documented to be available every 0.667us, so in theory > the 8 sample deep FIFO should take 5.336us to fill. However, during > thorough testing, it became apparent that filling the FIFO actually > takes closer to 12us. Is that measured? > +/* > + * Samples are documented to be available every 0.667us, so in theory > + * the 8 sample deep FIFO should take 5.336us to fill. However, during > + * thorough testing, it became apparent that filling the FIFO actually > + * takes closer to 12us. > + */ > +#define ST_RNG_FILL_FIFO_TIMEOUT 12 I hope you're not using such a precise figure with udelay(). udelay() is not guaranteed to give exactly (or even at least) the delay you request. It's defined to give an approximate delay. Many people have a problem understanding that, so I won't explain why it is that way, just accept that it is and move on... it's not going to magically get "fixed" because someone has just learnt about this. :)
On Tue, 06 Oct 2015, Russell King - ARM Linux wrote: > On Tue, Oct 06, 2015 at 03:44:00PM +0100, Lee Jones wrote: > > Samples are documented to be available every 0.667us, so in theory > > the 8 sample deep FIFO should take 5.336us to fill. However, during > > thorough testing, it became apparent that filling the FIFO actually > > takes closer to 12us. > > Is that measured? I measured it using ktime. Hopefully that was adequate. > > +/* > > + * Samples are documented to be available every 0.667us, so in theory > > + * the 8 sample deep FIFO should take 5.336us to fill. However, during > > + * thorough testing, it became apparent that filling the FIFO actually > > + * takes closer to 12us. > > + */ > > +#define ST_RNG_FILL_FIFO_TIMEOUT 12 > > I hope you're not using such a precise figure with udelay(). udelay() > is not guaranteed to give exactly (or even at least) the delay you > request. It's defined to give an approximate delay. > > Many people have a problem understanding that, so I won't explain why > it is that way, just accept that it is and move on... it's not going > to magically get "fixed" because someone has just learnt about this. :) Thanks for the info. I did do testing, again using ktime, to make sure and on our platform (is it platform specific?) I measured udelay(1) to be ~1100ns. After moving to a 12us timeout and reading many MBs of randomness I am yet to receive any more timeouts.
On Tue, Oct 06, 2015 at 09:51:22PM +0100, Lee Jones wrote: > On Tue, 06 Oct 2015, Russell King - ARM Linux wrote: > > On Tue, Oct 06, 2015 at 03:44:00PM +0100, Lee Jones wrote: > > > Samples are documented to be available every 0.667us, so in theory > > > the 8 sample deep FIFO should take 5.336us to fill. However, during > > > thorough testing, it became apparent that filling the FIFO actually > > > takes closer to 12us. > > > > Is that measured? > > I measured it using ktime. Hopefully that was adequate. > > > > +/* > > > + * Samples are documented to be available every 0.667us, so in theory > > > + * the 8 sample deep FIFO should take 5.336us to fill. However, during > > > + * thorough testing, it became apparent that filling the FIFO actually > > > + * takes closer to 12us. > > > + */ > > > +#define ST_RNG_FILL_FIFO_TIMEOUT 12 > > > > I hope you're not using such a precise figure with udelay(). udelay() > > is not guaranteed to give exactly (or even at least) the delay you > > request. It's defined to give an approximate delay. > > > > Many people have a problem understanding that, so I won't explain why > > it is that way, just accept that it is and move on... it's not going > > to magically get "fixed" because someone has just learnt about this. :) > > Thanks for the info. I did do testing, again using ktime, to make > sure and on our platform (is it platform specific?) I measured > udelay(1) to be ~1100ns. After moving to a 12us timeout and reading > many MBs of randomness I am yet to receive any more timeouts. If you happen to fall back to the software timing loop, udelay(1) will not be >=1us anymore, but will be slightly shorter. That's because the loops_per_jiffy value is calculated as the number of loops between each timer interrupt - so the period being measured is the timer period, minus the time it takes for the timer interrupt to run. The latter is indeterminant. Consequently, the loops_per_jiffy estimate is always slightly under the real number of loops-per-jiffy, so delays generated by udelay() and friends will always be slightly short. The faster your HZ value, the bigger the error. The longer the interrupt handler takes, the bigger the error. IIRC, Linus recommends a x2 factor on delays, especially timeouts generated by these functions.
On Tue, 06 Oct 2015, Russell King - ARM Linux wrote: > On Tue, Oct 06, 2015 at 09:51:22PM +0100, Lee Jones wrote: > > On Tue, 06 Oct 2015, Russell King - ARM Linux wrote: > > > On Tue, Oct 06, 2015 at 03:44:00PM +0100, Lee Jones wrote: > > > > Samples are documented to be available every 0.667us, so in theory > > > > the 8 sample deep FIFO should take 5.336us to fill. However, during > > > > thorough testing, it became apparent that filling the FIFO actually > > > > takes closer to 12us. > > > > > > Is that measured? > > > > I measured it using ktime. Hopefully that was adequate. > > > > > > +/* > > > > + * Samples are documented to be available every 0.667us, so in theory > > > > + * the 8 sample deep FIFO should take 5.336us to fill. However, during > > > > + * thorough testing, it became apparent that filling the FIFO actually > > > > + * takes closer to 12us. > > > > + */ > > > > +#define ST_RNG_FILL_FIFO_TIMEOUT 12 > > > > > > I hope you're not using such a precise figure with udelay(). udelay() > > > is not guaranteed to give exactly (or even at least) the delay you > > > request. It's defined to give an approximate delay. > > > > > > Many people have a problem understanding that, so I won't explain why > > > it is that way, just accept that it is and move on... it's not going > > > to magically get "fixed" because someone has just learnt about this. :) > > > > Thanks for the info. I did do testing, again using ktime, to make > > sure and on our platform (is it platform specific?) I measured > > udelay(1) to be ~1100ns. After moving to a 12us timeout and reading > > many MBs of randomness I am yet to receive any more timeouts. > > If you happen to fall back to the software timing loop, udelay(1) will not > be >=1us anymore, but will be slightly shorter. > > That's because the loops_per_jiffy value is calculated as the number of > loops between each timer interrupt - so the period being measured is the > timer period, minus the time it takes for the timer interrupt to run. > The latter is indeterminant. Consequently, the loops_per_jiffy estimate > is always slightly under the real number of loops-per-jiffy, so delays > generated by udelay() and friends will always be slightly short. > > The faster your HZ value, the bigger the error. The longer the interrupt > handler takes, the bigger the error. Thanks for taking the time to explain. > IIRC, Linus recommends a x2 factor on delays, especially timeouts generated > by these functions. In this implementation it shouldn't matter too much either way. Even when the timeouts were prolific, bandwidth was not reduced due to the quick turn-round of the subsystem. I don't foresee any impact on bandwidth if we were to raise the timeout either; in fact, I doubt we'd ever see a timeout again.
diff --git a/drivers/char/hw_random/st-rng.c b/drivers/char/hw_random/st-rng.c index 44480fe..3b1432c 100644 --- a/drivers/char/hw_random/st-rng.c +++ b/drivers/char/hw_random/st-rng.c @@ -33,8 +33,13 @@ #define ST_RNG_FIFO_DEPTH 8 #define ST_RNG_FIFO_SIZE (ST_RNG_FIFO_DEPTH * ST_RNG_SAMPLE_SIZE) -/* Samples are available every 0.667us, which we round to 1us */ -#define ST_RNG_FILL_FIFO_TIMEOUT (1 * (ST_RNG_FIFO_SIZE / ST_RNG_SAMPLE_SIZE)) +/* + * Samples are documented to be available every 0.667us, so in theory + * the 8 sample deep FIFO should take 5.336us to fill. However, during + * thorough testing, it became apparent that filling the FIFO actually + * takes closer to 12us. + */ +#define ST_RNG_FILL_FIFO_TIMEOUT 12 struct st_rng_data { void __iomem *base;
Samples are documented to be available every 0.667us, so in theory the 8 sample deep FIFO should take 5.336us to fill. However, during thorough testing, it became apparent that filling the FIFO actually takes closer to 12us. Signed-off-by: Lee Jones <lee.jones@linaro.org> --- drivers/char/hw_random/st-rng.c | 9 +++++++-- 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)