| .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 |
| |
| ============================================= |
| Linux Kernel GPIO based sloppy logic analyzer |
| ============================================= |
| |
| :Author: Wolfram Sang |
| |
| Introduction |
| ============ |
| |
| This document briefly describes how to run the GPIO based in-kernel sloppy |
| logic analyzer running on an isolated CPU. |
| |
| The sloppy logic analyzer will utilize a few GPIO lines in input mode on a |
| system to rapidly sample these digital lines, which will, if the Nyquist |
| criteria is met, result in a time series log with approximate waveforms as they |
| appeared on these lines. One way to use it is to analyze external traffic |
| connected to these GPIO lines with wires (i.e. digital probes), acting as a |
| common logic analyzer. |
| |
| Another feature is to snoop on on-chip peripherals if the I/O cells of these |
| peripherals can be used in GPIO input mode at the same time as they are being |
| used as inputs or outputs for the peripheral. That means you could e.g. snoop |
| I2C traffic without any wiring (if your hardware supports it). In the pin |
| control subsystem such pin controllers are called "non-strict": a certain pin |
| can be used with a certain peripheral and as a GPIO input line at the same |
| time. |
| |
| Note that this is a last resort analyzer which can be affected by latencies, |
| non-deterministic code paths and non-maskable interrupts. It is called 'sloppy' |
| for a reason. However, for e.g. remote development, it may be useful to get a |
| first view and aid further debugging. |
| |
| Setup |
| ===== |
| |
| Your kernel must have CONFIG_DEBUG_FS and CONFIG_CPUSETS enabled. Ideally, your |
| runtime environment does not utilize cpusets otherwise, then isolation of a CPU |
| core is easiest. If you do need cpusets, check that helper script for the |
| sloppy logic analyzer does not interfere with your other settings. |
| |
| Tell the kernel which GPIOs are used as probes. For a Device Tree based system, |
| you need to use the following bindings. Because these bindings are only for |
| debugging, there is no official schema:: |
| |
| i2c-analyzer { |
| compatible = "gpio-sloppy-logic-analyzer"; |
| probe-gpios = <&gpio6 21 GPIO_OPEN_DRAIN>, <&gpio6 4 GPIO_OPEN_DRAIN>; |
| probe-names = "SCL", "SDA"; |
| }; |
| |
| Note that you must provide a name for every GPIO specified. Currently a |
| maximum of 8 probes are supported. 32 are likely possible but are not |
| implemented yet. |
| |
| Usage |
| ===== |
| |
| The logic analyzer is configurable via files in debugfs. However, it is |
| strongly recommended to not use them directly, but to use the script |
| ``tools/gpio/gpio-sloppy-logic-analyzer``. Besides checking parameters more |
| extensively, it will isolate the CPU core so you will have the least |
| disturbance while measuring. |
| |
| The script has a help option explaining the parameters. For the above DT |
| snippet which analyzes an I2C bus at 400kHz on a Renesas Salvator-XS board, the |
| following settings are used: The isolated CPU shall be CPU1 because it is a big |
| core in a big.LITTLE setup. Because CPU1 is the default, we don't need a |
| parameter. The bus speed is 400kHz. So, the sampling theorem says we need to |
| sample at least at 800kHz. However, falling edges of both signals in an I2C |
| start condition happen faster, so we need a higher sampling frequency, e.g. |
| ``-s 1500000`` for 1.5MHz. Also, we don't want to sample right away but wait |
| for a start condition on an idle bus. So, we need to set a trigger to a falling |
| edge on SDA while SCL stays high, i.e. ``-t 1H+2F``. Last is the duration, let |
| us assume 15ms here which results in the parameter ``-d 15000``. So, |
| altogether:: |
| |
| gpio-sloppy-logic-analyzer -s 1500000 -t 1H+2F -d 15000 |
| |
| Note that the process will return you back to the prompt but a sub-process is |
| still sampling in the background. Unless this has finished, you will not find a |
| result file in the current or specified directory. For the above example, we |
| will then need to trigger I2C communication:: |
| |
| i2cdetect -y -r <your bus number> |
| |
| Result is a .sr file to be consumed with PulseView or sigrok-cli from the free |
| `sigrok`_ project. It is a zip file which also contains the binary sample data |
| which may be consumed by other software. The filename is the logic analyzer |
| instance name plus a since-epoch timestamp. |
| |
| .. _sigrok: https://sigrok.org/ |