Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932348AbZIVQGZ (ORCPT ); Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:06:25 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S932335AbZIVQGW (ORCPT ); Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:06:22 -0400 Received: from s-utl01-sjpop.stsn.net ([72.254.0.201]:54683 "HELO s-utl01-sjpop.stsn.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S932331AbZIVQGV (ORCPT ); Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:06:21 -0400 From: Mark Brown To: Liam Girdwood Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Mark Brown Subject: [PATCH] regulator: Add some brief design documentation Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:50:32 -0700 Message-Id: <1253634632-8398-1-git-send-email-broonie@opensource.wolfsonmicro.com> X-Mailer: git-send-email 1.6.3.3 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2139 Lines: 57 Provide some brief documentation of some of the design decisions that are made by the regulator API. Signed-off-by: Mark Brown --- Documentation/power/regulator/design.txt | 33 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 files changed, 33 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) create mode 100644 Documentation/power/regulator/design.txt diff --git a/Documentation/power/regulator/design.txt b/Documentation/power/regulator/design.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f9b56b7 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/power/regulator/design.txt @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +Regulator API design notes +========================== + +This document provides a brief, partially structured, overview of some +of the design considerations which impact the regulator API design. + +Safety +------ + + - Errors in regulator configuration can have very serious consequences + for the system, potentially including lasting hardware damage. + - It is not possible to automatically determine the power confugration + of the system - software-equivalent variants of the same chip may + have different power requirments, and not all components with power + requirements are visible to software. + + => The API should make no changes to the hardware state unless it has + specific knowledge that these changes are safe to do perform on + this particular system. + +Consumer use cases +------------------ + + - The overwhelming majority of devices in a system will have no + requirement to do any runtime configuration of their power beyond + being able to turn it on or off. + + - Many of the power supplies in the system will be shared between many + different consumers. + + => The consumer API should be structured so that these use cases are + very easy to handle and so that consumers will work with shared + supplies without any additional effort. -- 1.6.3.3 -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/