1README on the Vectored Interrupt Controller of the LH7A404
2==========================================================
3
4The 404 revision of the LH7A40X series comes with two vectored
5interrupts controllers.  While the kernel does use some of the
6features of these devices, it is far from the purpose for which they
7were designed.
8
9When this README was written, the implementation of the VICs was in
10flux.  It is possible that some details, especially with priorities,
11will change.
12
13The VIC support code is inspired by routines written by Sharp.
14
15
16Priority Control
17----------------
18
19The significant reason for using the VIC's vectoring is to control
20interrupt priorities.  There are two tables in
21arch/arm/mach-lh7a40x/irq-lh7a404.c that look something like this.
22
23  static unsigned char irq_pri_vic1[] = { IRQ_GPIO3INTR, };
24  static unsigned char irq_pri_vic2[] = {
25	IRQ_T3UI, IRQ_GPIO7INTR,
26	IRQ_UART1INTR, IRQ_UART2INTR, IRQ_UART3INTR, };
27
28The initialization code reads these tables and inserts a vector
29address and enable for each indicated IRQ.  Vectored interrupts have
30higher priority than non-vectored interrupts.  So, on VIC1,
31IRQ_GPIO3INTR will be served before any other non-FIQ interrupt.  Due
32to the way that the vectoring works, IRQ_T3UI is the next highest
33priority followed by the other vectored interrupts on VIC2.  After
34that, the non-vectored interrupts are scanned in VIC1 then in VIC2.
35
36
37ISR
38---
39
40The interrupt service routine macro get_irqnr() in
41arch/arm/kernel/entry-armv.S scans the VICs for the next active
42interrupt.  The vectoring makes this code somewhat larger than it was
43before using vectoring (refer to the LH7A400 implementation).  In the
44case where an interrupt is vectored, the implementation will tend to
45be faster than the non-vectored version.  However, the worst-case path
46is longer.
47
48It is worth noting that at present, there is no need to read
49VIC2_VECTADDR because the register appears to be shared between the
50controllers.  The code is written such that if this changes, it ought
51to still work properly.
52
53
54Vector Addresses
55----------------
56
57The proper use of the vectoring hardware would jump to the ISR
58specified by the vectoring address.  Linux isn't structured to take
59advantage of this feature, though it might be possible to change
60things to support it.
61
62In this implementation, the vectoring address is used to speed the
63search for the active IRQ.  The address is coded such that the lowest
646 bits store the IRQ number for vectored interrupts.  These numbers
65correspond to the bits in the interrupt status registers.  IRQ zero is
66the lowest interrupt bit in VIC1.  IRQ 32 is the lowest interrupt bit
67in VIC2.  Because zero is a valid IRQ number and because we cannot
68detect whether or not there is a valid vectoring address if that
69address is zero, the eigth bit (0x100) is set for vectored interrupts.
70The address for IRQ 0x18 (VIC2) is 0x118.  Only the ninth bit is set
71for the default handler on VIC1 and only the tenth bit is set for the
72default handler on VIC2.
73
74In other words.
75
76  0x000		- no active interrupt
77  0x1ii		- vectored interrupt 0xii
78  0x2xx		- unvectored interrupt on VIC1 (xx is don't care)
79  0x4xx		- unvectored interrupt on VIC2 (xx is don't care)
80