I2C Address Translators

Author: Luca Ceresoli <luca@lucaceresoli.net> Author: Tomi Valkeinen <tomi.valkeinen@ideasonboard.com>

Description

An I2C Address Translator (ATR) is a device with an I2C slave parent (“upstream”) port and N I2C master child (“downstream”) ports, and forwards transactions from upstream to the appropriate downstream port with a modified slave address. The address used on the parent bus is called the “alias” and is (potentially) different from the physical slave address of the child bus. Address translation is done by the hardware.

An ATR looks similar to an i2c-mux except:

• the address on the parent and child busses can be different

• there is normally no need to select the child port; the alias used on the parent bus implies it

The ATR functionality can be provided by a chip with many other features. The kernel i2c-atr provides a helper to implement an ATR within a driver.

The ATR creates a new I2C “child” adapter on each child bus. Adding devices on the child bus ends up in invoking the driver code to select an available alias. Maintaining an appropriate pool of available aliases and picking one for each new device is up to the driver implementer. The ATR maintains a table of currently assigned alias and uses it to modify all I2C transactions directed to devices on the child buses.

A typical example follows.

Topology:

                    Slave X @ 0x10
            .-----.   |
.-----.     |     |---+---- B
| CPU |--A--| ATR |
`-----'     |     |---+---- C
            `-----'   |
                    Slave Y @ 0x10

Alias table:

A, B and C are three physical I2C busses, electrically independent from each other. The ATR receives the transactions initiated on bus A and propagates them on bus B or bus C or none depending on the device address in the transaction and based on the alias table.

Alias table:

Client	Alias
X (bus B, 0x10)	0x20
Y (bus C, 0x10)	0x30

Transaction:

• Slave X driver requests a transaction (on adapter B), slave address 0x10

• ATR driver finds slave X is on bus B and has alias 0x20, rewrites messages with address 0x20, forwards to adapter A

• Physical I2C transaction on bus A, slave address 0x20

• ATR chip detects transaction on address 0x20, finds it in table, propagates transaction on bus B with address translated to 0x10, keeps clock stretched on bus A waiting for reply

• Slave X chip (on bus B) detects transaction at its own physical address 0x10 and replies normally

• ATR chip stops clock stretching and forwards reply on bus A, with address translated back to 0x20

• ATR driver receives the reply, rewrites messages with address 0x10 as they were initially

• Slave X driver gets back the msgs[], with reply and address 0x10

Usage:

1. In the driver (typically in the probe function) add an ATR by calling i2c_atr_new() passing attach/detach callbacks

2. When the attach callback is called pick an appropriate alias, configure it in the chip and return the chosen alias in the alias_id parameter

3. When the detach callback is called, deconfigure the alias from the chip and put the alias back in the pool for later usage

I2C ATR functions and data structures

struct i2c_atr_ops

Callbacks from ATR to the device driver.

Definition:

struct i2c_atr_ops {
    int (*attach_client)(struct i2c_atr *atr, u32 chan_id, const struct i2c_client *client, u16 alias);
    void (*detach_client)(struct i2c_atr *atr, u32 chan_id, const struct i2c_client *client);
};

Members

attach_client

Notify the driver of a new device connected on a child bus, with the alias assigned to it. The driver must configure the hardware to use the alias.

detach_client

Notify the driver of a device getting disconnected. The driver must configure the hardware to stop using the alias.

Description

All these functions return 0 on success, a negative error code otherwise.

struct i2c_atr *i2c_atr_new(struct i2c_adapter *parent, struct device *dev, const struct i2c_atr_ops *ops, int max_adapters)

Allocate and initialize an I2C ATR helper.

Parameters

struct i2c_adapter *parent

The parent (upstream) adapter

struct device *dev

The device acting as an ATR

const struct i2c_atr_ops *ops

Driver-specific callbacks

int max_adapters

Maximum number of child adapters

Description

The new ATR helper is connected to the parent adapter but has no child adapters. Call i2c_atr_add_adapter() to add some.

Call i2c_atr_delete() to remove.

Return

pointer to the new ATR helper object, or ERR_PTR

void i2c_atr_delete(struct i2c_atr *atr)

Delete an I2C ATR helper.

Parameters

struct i2c_atr *atr

I2C ATR helper to be deleted.

Description

Precondition: all the adapters added with i2c_atr_add_adapter() must be removed by calling i2c_atr_del_adapter().

int i2c_atr_add_adapter(struct i2c_atr *atr, u32 chan_id, struct device *adapter_parent, struct fwnode_handle *bus_handle)

Create a child (“downstream”) I2C bus.

Parameters

struct i2c_atr *atr

The I2C ATR

u32 chan_id

Index of the new adapter (0 .. max_adapters-1). This value is passed to the callbacks in struct i2c_atr_ops.

struct device *adapter_parent

The device used as the parent of the new i2c adapter, or NULL to use the i2c-atr device as the parent.

struct fwnode_handle *bus_handle

The fwnode handle that points to the adapter’s i2c peripherals, or NULL.

Description

After calling this function a new i2c bus will appear. Adding and removing devices on the downstream bus will result in calls to the i2c_atr_ops->attach_client and i2c_atr_ops->detach_client callbacks for the driver to assign an alias to the device.

The adapter’s fwnode is set to bus_handle, or if bus_handle is NULL the function looks for a child node whose ‘reg’ property matches the chan_id under the i2c-atr device’s ‘i2c-atr’ node.

Call i2c_atr_del_adapter() to remove the adapter.

Return

0 on success, a negative error code otherwise.

void i2c_atr_del_adapter(struct i2c_atr *atr, u32 chan_id)

Remove a child (“downstream”) I2C bus added by i2c_atr_add_adapter(). If no I2C bus has been added this function is a no-op.

Parameters

struct i2c_atr *atr

The I2C ATR

u32 chan_id

Index of the adapter to be removed (0 .. max_adapters-1)

void i2c_atr_set_driver_data(struct i2c_atr *atr, void *data)

Set private driver data to the i2c-atr instance.

Parameters

struct i2c_atr *atr

The I2C ATR

void *data

Pointer to the data to store

void *i2c_atr_get_driver_data(struct i2c_atr *atr)

Get the stored drive data.

Parameters

struct i2c_atr *atr

The I2C ATR

Return

Pointer to the stored data