• Takashi Sakamoto's avatar
    ALSA: fireface: add an abstraction layer for model-specific protocols · 53eb0867
    Takashi Sakamoto authored
    As of 2016, RME discontinued its Fireface series, thus it's OK for us
    to focus on released firmwares to drive known units.
    
    As long as investigating Fireface 400 with Windows driver and comparing
    the result to FFADO implementation, I can see these firmwares have
    different register assignments. On the other hand, according to manuals
    of each models, features relevant to packet streaming seem to be common,
    because GUIs for these models have the same options. It's reasonable to
    assume an abstraction layer of protocols to communicate to each models.
    
    This commit adds the abstraction layer for the protocols. This layer
    includes some functions to operate common features of models in this
    series.
    
    In IEC 61883-1/6, the sequence of packet can transfer timing information
    to synchronize receivers to transmitters. Units of each node on IEEE 1394
    bus can generate transmitter's timing clock by handling value of SYT field
    in CIP header with high-precision clock. For audio and music units on
    IEEE 1394 bus, this recovered clock is designed to used for sampling clock
    to capture/generate PCM frames on DSP/ADC/DAC. (Actually, in this world,
    there's no units to implement this specification as is, as long as I
    know).
    
    Fireface series doesn't use this mechanism. Besides, It doesn't use
    isochronous packet with CIP header. It uses internal crystal unit as its
    initial sampling clock. When detecting input signals which can be
    available for sampling clock (e.g. ADAT input), drivers can configure
    units to use the signals as source of sampling clock. When something goes
    wrong, e.g. frequency mismatching between the signal and configured value,
    units fallback to the other detected signals alternatively. When detecting
    no alternatives, internal crystal unit is used as source of sampling
    clock. On manual of Fireface 400, this mechanism is described as
    'Autosync'.
    
    On the units, packet streaming is controlled by write transactions to
    certain registers. Format of the packet, e.g. the number of data channels
    in a data block, is also configured by the same manner. For this purpose,
    .begin_session and .finish_session is added.
    
    The remarkable point of this protocol is to allow drivers to configure
    arbitrary sampling transmission frequency; e.g. 12.345 Hz. As long as I
    know, there's no actual DAC/ADC chips which support this kind of
    capability. I think a pair of packet streaming layer and data block
    processing layer is isolated from sampling data processing layer in a
    point of governed clock. In short, between these parts, resampling layer
    exists. Actually, for Fireface 400, write transactions to
    0x'0000'8010'051c has an effect to change sampling clock frequency with
    base frequencies (32.0/44.1/48.0 kHz) and its multipliers (x2/x4),
    regardless of sampling transmission frequency.
    
    For this reason, the abstraction layer doesn't handle parameters for
    sampling clock. Instead, each implementation of .begin_session is
    expected to configure sampling transmission frequency.
    
    For packet streaming layer, it's enough to get current selection of
    source signals for the sampling clock and its frequency. In the
    abstraction layer, when internal crystal is selected, drivers can sets
    arbitrary sampling frequency, else they should follow configured
    frequency. For this purpose, .get_clock is added.
    
    Drivers are allows to bank up data fetching from a pair of packet
    streaming/data block processing layer and sampling data processing layer.
    This feature seems to suppress noises at starting/stopping packet
    streaming. For this purpose, .switch_fetching_mode is added.
    
    As I described in the above, units have remarkable mechanism to manage
    sampling clock and process sampling data. For debugging purpose,
    .dump_sync_status and .dump_clock_config are added. I don't have a need
    to common interface to represent the status and configuration,
    developers can add actual implementation of the abstraction layer as they
    like.
    
    Unlike PCM frames, MIDI messages are transferred by asynchronous
    communication over IEEE 1394 bus, thus target addresses are important for
    this feature. The .midi_high_addr_reg, .midi_rx_port_0_reg and
    .midi_rx_port_1_reg are for this purpose. I'll describe them in following
    commit.
    Signed-off-by: default avatarTakashi Sakamoto <o-takashi@sakamocchi.jp>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarTakashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>
    53eb0867
ff.h 1.74 KB