1 Specifying GPIO information for devices
2 ============================================
7 Nodes that makes use of GPIOs should specify them using one or more
8 properties, each containing a 'gpio-list':
10 gpio-list ::= <single-gpio> [gpio-list]
11 single-gpio ::= <gpio-phandle> <gpio-specifier>
12 gpio-phandle : phandle to gpio controller node
13 gpio-specifier : Array of #gpio-cells specifying specific gpio
16 GPIO properties should be named "[<name>-]gpios", with <name> being the purpose
17 of this GPIO for the device. While a non-existent <name> is considered valid
18 for compatibility reasons (resolving to the "gpios" property), it is not allowed
21 GPIO properties can contain one or more GPIO phandles, but only in exceptional
22 cases should they contain more than one. If your device uses several GPIOs with
23 distinct functions, reference each of them under its own property, giving it a
24 meaningful name. The only case where an array of GPIOs is accepted is when
25 several GPIOs serve the same function (e.g. a parallel data line).
27 The exact purpose of each gpios property must be documented in the device tree
28 binding of the device.
30 The following example could be used to describe GPIO pins used as device enable
31 and bit-banged data signals:
43 enable-gpios = <&gpio2 2>;
44 data-gpios = <&gpio1 12 0>,
49 Note that gpio-specifier length is controller dependent. In the
50 above example, &gpio1 uses 2 cells to specify a gpio, while &gpio2
53 gpio-specifier may encode: bank, pin position inside the bank,
54 whether pin is open-drain and whether pin is logically inverted.
55 Exact meaning of each specifier cell is controller specific, and must
56 be documented in the device tree binding for the device. Use the macros
57 defined in include/dt-bindings/gpio/gpio.h whenever possible:
59 Example of a node using GPIOs:
62 enable-gpios = <&qe_pio_e 18 GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH>;
65 GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH is 0, so in this example gpio-specifier is "18 0" and encodes
66 GPIO pin number, and GPIO flags as accepted by the "qe_pio_e" gpio-controller.
68 1.1) GPIO specifier best practices
69 ----------------------------------
71 A gpio-specifier should contain a flag indicating the GPIO polarity; active-
72 high or active-low. If it does, the following best practices should be
75 The gpio-specifier's polarity flag should represent the physical level at the
76 GPIO controller that achieves (or represents, for inputs) a logically asserted
77 value at the device. The exact definition of logically asserted should be
78 defined by the binding for the device. If the board inverts the signal between
79 the GPIO controller and the device, then the gpio-specifier will represent the
80 opposite physical level than the signal at the device's pin.
82 When the device's signal polarity is configurable, the binding for the
85 a) Define a single static polarity for the signal, with the expectation that
86 any software using that binding would statically program the device to use
89 The static choice of polarity may be either:
91 a1) (Preferred) Dictated by a binding-specific DT property.
95 a2) Defined statically by the DT binding itself.
97 In particular, the polarity cannot be derived from the gpio-specifier, since
98 that would prevent the DT from separately representing the two orthogonal
99 concepts of configurable signal polarity in the device, and possible board-
100 level signal inversion.
104 b) Pick a single option for device signal polarity, and document this choice
105 in the binding. The gpio-specifier should represent the polarity of the signal
106 (at the GPIO controller) assuming that the device is configured for this
107 particular signal polarity choice. If software chooses to program the device
108 to generate or receive a signal of the opposite polarity, software will be
109 responsible for correctly interpreting (inverting) the GPIO signal at the GPIO
112 2) gpio-controller nodes
113 ------------------------
115 Every GPIO controller node must contain both an empty "gpio-controller"
116 property, and a #gpio-cells integer property, which indicates the number of
117 cells in a gpio-specifier.
119 Example of two SOC GPIO banks defined as gpio-controller nodes:
121 qe_pio_a: gpio-controller@1400 {
122 compatible = "fsl,qe-pario-bank-a", "fsl,qe-pario-bank";
128 qe_pio_e: gpio-controller@1460 {
129 compatible = "fsl,qe-pario-bank-e", "fsl,qe-pario-bank";
135 2.1) gpio- and pin-controller interaction
136 -----------------------------------------
138 Some or all of the GPIOs provided by a GPIO controller may be routed to pins
139 on the package via a pin controller. This allows muxing those pins between
140 GPIO and other functions.
142 It is useful to represent which GPIOs correspond to which pins on which pin
143 controllers. The gpio-ranges property described below represents this, and
144 contains information structures as follows:
146 gpio-range-list ::= <single-gpio-range> [gpio-range-list]
147 single-gpio-range ::= <numeric-gpio-range> | <named-gpio-range>
148 numeric-gpio-range ::=
149 <pinctrl-phandle> <gpio-base> <pinctrl-base> <count>
150 named-gpio-range ::= <pinctrl-phandle> <gpio-base> '<0 0>'
151 pinctrl-phandle : phandle to pin controller node
152 gpio-base : Base GPIO ID in the GPIO controller
153 pinctrl-base : Base pinctrl pin ID in the pin controller
154 count : The number of GPIOs/pins in this range
156 The "pin controller node" mentioned above must conform to the bindings
157 described in ../pinctrl/pinctrl-bindings.txt.
159 In case named gpio ranges are used (ranges with both <pinctrl-base> and
160 <count> set to 0), the property gpio-ranges-group-names contains one string
161 for every single-gpio-range in gpio-ranges:
162 gpiorange-names-list ::= <gpiorange-name> [gpiorange-names-list]
163 gpiorange-name : Name of the pingroup associated to the GPIO range in
164 the respective pin controller.
166 Elements of gpiorange-names-list corresponding to numeric ranges contain
167 the empty string. Elements of gpiorange-names-list corresponding to named
168 ranges contain the name of a pin group defined in the respective pin
169 controller. The number of pins/GPIOs in the range is the number of pins in
172 Previous versions of this binding required all pin controller nodes that
173 were referenced by any gpio-ranges property to contain a property named
174 #gpio-range-cells with value <3>. This requirement is now deprecated.
175 However, that property may still exist in older device trees for
176 compatibility reasons, and would still be required even in new device
177 trees that need to be compatible with older software.
181 qe_pio_e: gpio-controller@1460 {
183 compatible = "fsl,qe-pario-bank-e", "fsl,qe-pario-bank";
186 gpio-ranges = <&pinctrl1 0 20 10>, <&pinctrl2 10 50 20>;
189 Here, a single GPIO controller has GPIOs 0..9 routed to pin controller
190 pinctrl1's pins 20..29, and GPIOs 10..19 routed to pin controller pinctrl2's
195 gpio_pio_i: gpio-controller@14B0 {
197 compatible = "fsl,qe-pario-bank-e", "fsl,qe-pario-bank";
200 gpio-ranges = <&pinctrl1 0 20 10>,
204 gpio-ranges-group-names = "",
210 Here, three GPIO ranges are defined wrt. two pin controllers. pinctrl1 GPIO
211 ranges are defined using pin numbers whereas the GPIO ranges wrt. pinctrl2
212 are named "foo" and "bar".