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delay: Add explanation of udelay() inaccuracy

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There seems to be some misunderstanding that udelay() and friends will
always guarantee the specified delay.  This is a false understanding.
When udelay() is based on CPU cycles, it can return early for many
reasons which are detailed by Linus' reply to me in a thread in 2011:

  http://lists.openwall.net/linux-kernel/2011/01/12/372

However, a udelay test module was created in 2014 which allows udelay()
to only be 0.5% fast, which is outside of the CPU-cycles udelay()
results I measured back in 2011, which were deemed to be in the "we
don't care" region.

test_udelay() should be fixed to reflect the real allowable tolerance
on udelay(), rather than 0.5%.

Cc: David Riley <davidriley@chromium.org>
Cc: John Stultz <john.stultz@linaro.org>
Signed-off-by: Russell King <rmk+kernel@armlinux.org.uk>
Signed-off-by: John Stultz <john.stultz@linaro.org>
This commit is contained in:
Russell King 2017-01-19 10:59:13 +00:00 committed by John Stultz
parent 40d9f82750
commit 9f8197980d
1 changed files with 11 additions and 0 deletions
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11
include/linux/delay.h
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@ -5,6 +5,17 @@
* Copyright (C) 1993 Linus Torvalds
*
* Delay routines, using a pre-computed "loops_per_jiffy" value.
*
* Please note that ndelay(), udelay() and mdelay() may return early for
* several reasons:
* 1. computed loops_per_jiffy too low (due to the time taken to
* execute the timer interrupt.)
* 2. cache behaviour affecting the time it takes to execute the
* loop function.
* 3. CPU clock rate changes.
*
* Please see this thread:
* http://lists.openwall.net/linux-kernel/2011/01/09/56
*/
#include <linux/kernel.h>