On Thu, Nov 30, 2017 at 08:20:08PM +0100, Maciej S. Szmigiero wrote:
In the AC'97 mode we have to differentiate two things:
- Bit width of the physical AC'97 interface ("AC-link"),
- Bit width of samples that are accepted during a playback and output
during a recording by the SSI (and, so by the sound card that it driven by this CPU).
Bit width of the physical AC'97 interface is fixed at 20 bits per sample (both in playback and capture direction).
Bit width of samples that are accepted (or produced) by the SSI could be set in its STCCR and SRCCR registers (although in the AC'97 mode only settings of either 16 or 20 bits are possible). Each direction could be set independently from the other one.
I checked the reference manual regarding the AC97 configurations. It seems that AC97 sets SYNC bit in SCR register. However, unlike I2S which only uses STCCR for both TX and RX, AC97 does use STCCR and SRCCR separately. So bypassing SRCCR if SYNC bit is set isn't correct for AC97 cases.
I will clean up the driver a bit and I think the change would be highly related to AC97 code. So I'll later need you review/test.
Regarding a sample rate in AC'97 mode its effective value isn't really controlled by the CPU (that is, SSI), but by a CODEC since it is the CODEC which tells the CPU when it should send a next sample for playback and when a next capture sample is ready. There are no problems if they are different (as long as the CODEC supports this, naturally, but it's up to its driver to restrict the sample rate space accordingly).
It's because CODEC drives the bit clock and framesync clock, isn't it? Could SSI act as the clock master side? It doesn't seem to be configurable to do so according to the reference manual though.
A comment above "fsl,ssi-asynchronous" property says that it is about whether "the RX and the TX clocks [are] locked". They are on the physical AC'97 interface, but they aren't on the logical playback / capture interface. IMHO, this configurable property simply makes no sense in the AC'97 mode.
The property is more on the hardware level. And we should refer to the DT binding doc: fsl,ssi-asynchronous: If specified, the SSI is to be programmed in asynchronous mode. In this mode, pins SRCK, STCK, SRFS, and STFS must all be connected to valid signals. In synchronous mode, SRCK and SRFS are ignored. Asynchronous mode allows playback and capture to use different sample sizes and sample rates. Some drivers may require that SRCK and STCK be connected together, and SRFS and STFS be connected together. This would still allow different sample sizes, but not different sample rates.
If AC97 doesn't need SRFS and SRCK at all, it's fine to ignore it.
Thanks Nic