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PHY Abstraction Layer

(Updated 2008-04-08)

Purpose

Most network devices consist of set of registers which provide an interface

to a MAC layer, which communicates with the physical connection through a

PHY. The PHY concerns itself with negotiating link parameters with the link

partner on the other side of the network connection (typically, an ethernet

cable), and provides a register interface to allow drivers to determine what

settings were chosen, and to configure what settings are allowed.

While these devices are distinct from the network devices, and conform to a

standard layout for the registers, it has been common practice to integrate

the PHY management code with the network driver. This has resulted in large

amounts of redundant code. Also, on embedded systems with multiple (and

sometimes quite different) ethernet controllers connected to the same

management bus, it is difficult to ensure safe use of the bus.

Since the PHYs are devices, and the management busses through which they are

accessed are, in fact, busses, the PHY Abstraction Layer treats them as such.

In doing so, it has these goals:

1) Increase code-reuse

2) Increase overall code-maintainability

3) Speed development time for new network drivers, and for new systems

Basically, this layer is meant to provide an interface to PHY devices which

allows network driver writers to write as little code as possible, while

still providing a full feature set.

The MDIO bus

Most network devices are connected to a PHY by means of a management bus.

Different devices use different busses (though some share common interfaces).

In order to take advantage of the PAL, each bus interface needs to be

registered as a distinct device.

1) read and write functions must be implemented. Their prototypes are:

int write(struct mii_bus *bus, int mii_id, int regnum, u16 value);

int read(struct mii_bus *bus, int mii_id, int regnum);

mii_id is the address on the bus for the PHY, and regnum is the register

number. These functions are guaranteed not to be called from interrupt

time, so it is safe for them to block, waiting for an interrupt to signal

the operation is complete

2) A reset function is optional. This is used to return the bus to an

initialized state.

3) A probe function is needed. This function should set up anything the bus

driver needs, setup the mii_bus structure, and register with the PAL using

mdiobus_register. Similarly, there's a remove function to undo all of

that (use mdiobus_unregister).

4) Like any driver, the device_driver structure must be configured, and init

exit functions are used to register the driver.

5) The bus must also be declared somewhere as a device, and registered.

As an example for how one driver implemented an mdio bus driver, see

drivers/net/ethernet/freescale/fsl_pq_mdio.c and an associated DTS file

for one of the users. (e.g. "git grep fsl,.*-mdio arch/powerpc/boot/dts/")

Connecting to a PHY

Sometime during startup, the network driver needs to establish a connection

between the PHY device, and the network device. At this time, the PHY's bus

and drivers need to all have been loaded, so it is ready for the connection.

At this point, there are several ways to connect to the PHY:

1) The PAL handles everything, and only calls the network driver when

the link state changes, so it can react.

2) The PAL handles everything except interrupts (usually because the

controller has the interrupt registers).

3) The PAL handles everything, but checks in with the driver every second,

allowing the network driver to react first to any changes before the PAL

does.

4) The PAL serves only as a library of functions, with the network device

manually calling functions to update status, and configure the PHY

Letting the PHY Abstraction Layer do Everything

If you choose option 1 (The hope is that every driver can, but to still be

useful to drivers that can't), connecting to the PHY is simple:

First, you need a function to react to changes in the link state. This

function follows this protocol:

static void adjust_link(struct net_device *dev);

Next, you need to know the device name of the PHY connected to this device.

The name will look something like, "0:00", where the first number is the

bus id, and the second is the PHY's address on that bus. Typically,

the bus is responsible for making its ID unique.

Now, to connect, just call this function:

phydev = phy_connect(dev, phy_name, &adjust_link, interface);

phydev is a pointer to the phy_device structure which represents the PHY. If

phy_connect is successful, it will return the pointer. dev, here, is the

pointer to your net_device. Once done, this function will have started the

PHY's software state machine, and registered for the PHY's interrupt, if it

has one. The phydev structure will be populated with information about the

current state, though the PHY will not yet be truly operational at this

point.

PHY-specific flags should be set in phydev->dev_flags prior to the call

to phy_connect() such that the underlying PHY driver can check for flags

and perform specific operations based on them.

This is useful if the system has put hardware restrictions on

the PHY/controller, of which the PHY needs to be aware.

interface is a u32 which specifies the connection type used

between the controller and the PHY. Examples are GMII, MII,

RGMII, and SGMII. For a full list, see include/linux/phy.h

Now just make sure that phydev->supported and phydev->advertising have any

values pruned from them which don't make sense for your controller (a 10/100

controller may be connected to a gigabit capable PHY, so you would need to

mask off SUPPORTED_1000baseT*). See include/linux/ethtool.h for definitions

for these bitfields. Note that you should not SET any bits, or the PHY may

get put into an unsupported state.

Lastly, once the controller is ready to handle network traffic, you call

phy_start(phydev). This tells the PAL that you are ready, and configures the

PHY to connect to the network. If you want to handle your own interrupts,

just set phydev->irq to PHY_IGNORE_INTERRUPT before you call phy_start.

Similarly, if you don't want to use interrupts, set phydev->irq to PHY_POLL.

When you want to disconnect from the network (even if just briefly), you call

phy_stop(phydev).

Keeping Close Tabs on the PAL

It is possible that the PAL's built-in state machine needs a little help to

keep your network device and the PHY properly in sync. If so, you can

register a helper function when connecting to the PHY, which will be called

every second before the state machine reacts to any changes. To do this, you

need to manually call phy_attach() and phy_prepare_link(), and then call

phy_start_machine() with the second argument set to point to your special

handler.

Currently there are no examples of how to use this functionality, and testing

on it has been limited because the author does not have any drivers which use

it (they all use option 1). So Caveat Emptor.

Doing it all yourself

There's a remote chance that the PAL's built-in state machine cannot track

the complex interactions between the PHY and your network device. If this is

so, you can simply call phy_attach(), and not call phy_start_machine or

phy_prepare_link(). This will mean that phydev->state is entirely yours to

handle (phy_start and phy_stop toggle between some of the states, so you

might need to avoid them).

An effort has been made to make sure that useful functionality can be

accessed without the state-machine running, and most of these functions are

descended from functions which did not interact with a complex state-machine.

However, again, no effort has been made so far to test running without the

state machine, so tryer beware.

Here is a brief rundown of the functions:

int phy_read(struct phy_device *phydev, u16 regnum);

int phy_write(struct phy_device *phydev, u16 regnum, u16 val);

Simple read/write primitives. They invoke the bus's read/write function

pointers.

void phy_print_status(struct phy_device *phydev);

A convenience function to print out the PHY status neatly.

int phy_start_interrupts(struct phy_device *phydev);

int phy_stop_interrupts(struct phy_device *phydev);

Requests the IRQ for the PHY interrupts, then enables them for

start, or disables then frees them for stop.

struct phy_device * phy_attach(struct net_device *dev, const char *phy_id,

phy_interface_t interface);

Attaches a network device to a particular PHY, binding the PHY to a generic

driver if none was found during bus initialization.

int phy_start_aneg(struct phy_device *phydev);

Using variables inside the phydev structure, either configures advertising

and resets autonegotiation, or disables autonegotiation, and configures

forced settings.

static inline int phy_read_status(struct phy_device *phydev);

Fills the phydev structure with up-to-date information about the current

settings in the PHY.

int phy_ethtool_sset(struct phy_device *phydev, struct ethtool_cmd *cmd);

int phy_ethtool_gset(struct phy_device *phydev, struct ethtool_cmd *cmd);

Ethtool convenience functions.

int phy_mii_ioctl(struct phy_device *phydev,

struct mii_ioctl_data *mii_data, int cmd);

The MII ioctl. Note that this function will completely screw up the state

machine if you write registers like BMCR, BMSR, ADVERTISE, etc. Best to

use this only to write registers which are not standard, and don't set off

a renegotiation.

PHY Device Drivers

With the PHY Abstraction Layer, adding support for new PHYs is

quite easy. In some cases, no work is required at all! However,

many PHYs require a little hand-holding to get up-and-running.

Generic PHY driver

If the desired PHY doesn't have any errata, quirks, or special

features you want to support, then it may be best to not add

support, and let the PHY Abstraction Layer's Generic PHY Driver

do all of the work.

Writing a PHY driver

If you do need to write a PHY driver, the first thing to do is

make sure it can be matched with an appropriate PHY device.

This is done during bus initialization by reading the device's

UID (stored in registers 2 and 3), then comparing it to each

driver's phy_id field by ANDing it with each driver's

phy_id_mask field. Also, it needs a name. Here's an example:

static struct phy_driver dm9161_driver = {

.phy_id = 0x0181b880,

.name = "Davicom DM9161E",

.phy_id_mask = 0x0ffffff0,

...

}

Next, you need to specify what features (speed, duplex, autoneg,

etc) your PHY device and driver support. Most PHYs support

PHY_BASIC_FEATURES, but you can look in include/mii.h for other

features.

Each driver consists of a number of function pointers:

soft_reset: perform a PHY software reset

config_init: configures PHY into a sane state after a reset.

For instance, a Davicom PHY requires descrambling disabled.

probe: Allocate phy->priv, optionally refuse to bind.

PHY may not have been reset or had fixups run yet.

suspend/resume: power management

config_aneg: Changes the speed/duplex/negotiation settings

aneg_done: Determines the auto-negotiation result

read_status: Reads the current speed/duplex/negotiation settings

ack_interrupt: Clear a pending interrupt

did_interrupt: Checks if the PHY generated an interrupt

config_intr: Enable or disable interrupts

remove: Does any driver take-down

ts_info: Queries about the HW timestamping status

hwtstamp: Set the PHY HW timestamping configuration

rxtstamp: Requests a receive timestamp at the PHY level for a 'skb'

txtsamp: Requests a transmit timestamp at the PHY level for a 'skb'

set_wol: Enable Wake-on-LAN at the PHY level

get_wol: Get the Wake-on-LAN status at the PHY level

read_mmd_indirect: Read PHY MMD indirect register

write_mmd_indirect: Write PHY MMD indirect register

Of these, only config_aneg and read_status are required to be

assigned by the driver code. The rest are optional. Also, it is

preferred to use the generic phy driver's versions of these two

functions if at all possible: genphy_read_status and

genphy_config_aneg. If this is not possible, it is likely that

you only need to perform some actions before and after invoking

these functions, and so your functions will wrap the generic

ones.

Feel free to look at the Marvell, Cicada, and Davicom drivers in

drivers/net/phy/ for examples (the lxt and qsemi drivers have

not been tested as of this writing).

The PHY's MMD register accesses are handled by the PAL framework

by default, but can be overridden by a specific PHY driver if

required. This could be the case if a PHY was released for

manufacturing before the MMD PHY register definitions were

standardized by the IEEE. Most modern PHYs will be able to use

the generic PAL framework for accessing the PHY's MMD registers.

An example of such usage is for Energy Efficient Ethernet support,

implemented in the PAL. This support uses the PAL to access MMD

registers for EEE query and configuration if the PHY supports

the IEEE standard access mechanisms, or can use the PHY's specific

access interfaces if overridden by the specific PHY driver. See

the Micrel driver in drivers/net/phy/ for an example of how this

can be implemented.

Board Fixups

Sometimes the specific interaction between the platform and the PHY requires

special handling. For instance, to change where the PHY's clock input is,

or to add a delay to account for latency issues in the data path. In order

to support such contingencies, the PHY Layer allows platform code to register

fixups to be run when the PHY is brought up (or subsequently reset).

When the PHY Layer brings up a PHY it checks to see if there are any fixups

registered for it, matching based on UID (contained in the PHY device's phy_id

field) and the bus identifier (contained in phydev->dev.bus_id). Both must

match, however two constants, PHY_ANY_ID and PHY_ANY_UID, are provided as

wildcards for the bus ID and UID, respectively.

When a match is found, the PHY layer will invoke the run function associated

with the fixup. This function is passed a pointer to the phy_device of

interest. It should therefore only operate on that PHY.

The platform code can either register the fixup using phy_register_fixup():

int phy_register_fixup(const char *phy_id,

u32 phy_uid, u32 phy_uid_mask,

int (*run)(struct phy_device *));

Or using one of the two stubs, phy_register_fixup_for_uid() and

phy_register_fixup_for_id():

int phy_register_fixup_for_uid(u32 phy_uid, u32 phy_uid_mask,

int (*run)(struct phy_device *));

int phy_register_fixup_for_id(const char *phy_id,

int (*run)(struct phy_device *));

The stubs set one of the two matching criteria, and set the other one to

match anything.