There are cases when we don't want to use a system register mapped
generic timer, but can't use the SP804. For example, when using KVM on
aarch64, we want to intercept accesses to the generic timer, but can't
do so if it is using the system register interface. In such cases,
we need to use a memory-mapped generic timer.
This changeset adds a device model that implements the memory mapped
generic timer interface. The current implementation only supports a
single frame (i.e., one virtual timer and one physical timer).
The generic timer model currently does not support virtual
counters. Virtual and physical counters both tick with the same
frequency. However, virtual timers allow a hypervisor to set an offset
that is subtracted from the counter when it is read. This enables the
hypervisor to present a time base that ticks with virtual time in the
VM (i.e., doesn't tick when the VM isn't running). Modern Linux
kernels generally assume that virtual counters exist and try to use
them by default.
This changeset cleans up the generic timer a bit and moves most of the
register juggling from the ISA code into a separate class in the same
source file as the rest of the generic timer. It also removes the
assumption that there is always 8 or fewer CPUs in the system. Instead
of having a fixed limit, we now instantiate per-core timers as they
are requested. This is all in preparation for other patches that add
support for virtual timers and a memory mapped interface.
Note: AArch64 and AArch32 interworking is not supported. If you use an AArch64
kernel you are restricted to AArch64 user-mode binaries. This will be addressed
in a later patch.
Note: Virtualization is only supported in AArch32 mode. This will also be fixed
in a later patch.
Contributors:
Giacomo Gabrielli (TrustZone, LPAE, system-level AArch64, AArch64 NEON, validation)
Thomas Grocutt (AArch32 Virtualization, AArch64 FP, validation)
Mbou Eyole (AArch64 NEON, validation)
Ali Saidi (AArch64 Linux support, code integration, validation)
Edmund Grimley-Evans (AArch64 FP)
William Wang (AArch64 Linux support)
Rene De Jong (AArch64 Linux support, performance opt.)
Matt Horsnell (AArch64 MP, validation)
Matt Evans (device models, code integration, validation)
Chris Adeniyi-Jones (AArch64 syscall-emulation)
Prakash Ramrakhyani (validation)
Dam Sunwoo (validation)
Chander Sudanthi (validation)
Stephan Diestelhorst (validation)
Andreas Hansson (code integration, performance opt.)
Eric Van Hensbergen (performance opt.)
Gabe Black
