linux-kernel - [PATCH 0/2] spi: cadence-quadspi: Prevent indirect read timeouts

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Message-Id: <20251218-cqspi_indirect_read_improve-v1-0-0ccb17c62f67@nokia.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2025 11:44:30 +0100
From: Mateusz Litwin via B4 Relay <devnull+mateusz.litwin.nokia.com@...nel.org>
To: Mark Brown <broonie@...nel.org>
Cc: linux-spi@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, 
 Mateusz Litwin <mateusz.litwin@...ia.com>
Subject: [PATCH 0/2] spi: cadence-quadspi: Prevent indirect read timeouts

Hello,

On the Stratix10 platform, indirect reads can become very slow due to lost
interrupts and/or missed `complete()` calls, causing
`wait_for_completion_timeout()` to expire.

Three issues were identified:
1) A race condition exists between the read loop and IRQ `complete()`
   call:
   An IRQ can call `complete()` after the inner loop ends, but before
   `reinit_completion()`, losing the completion event and leading to
   `wait_for_completion_timeout()` expire. This function will not return
   an error because `bytes_to_read` > 0 (indicating data is already in the
   FIFO) and the final `ret` value is overwritten by
   `cqspi_wait_for_bit()` return value (indicating request completion),
   masking the timeout.

   For test purpose, logging was added to print the count of timeouts and
   the outer loop count.
   $ dd if=/dev/mtd0 of=/dev/null bs=64M count=1
   [ 2232.925219] cadence-qspi ff8d2000.spi: Indirect read error timeout
    (1) loop (12472)
   [ 2236.200391] cadence-qspi ff8d2000.spi: Indirect read error timeout
    (1) loop (12460)
   [ 2239.482836] cadence-qspi ff8d2000.spi: Indirect read error timeout
    (5) loop (12450)
   This indicates that such an event is rare, but possible.
   Tested on the Stratix10 platform.

2) The quirk assumes the indirect read path never leaves the inner loop on
   SoCFPGA. This assumption is incorrect when using slow flash. Disabling
   IRQs in the inner loop can cause lost interrupts.

3) The `CQSPI_SLOW_SRAM` quirk disables `CQSPI_REG_IRQ_IND_COMP` (indirect
   completion) interrupt, relying solely on the `CQSPI_REG_IRQ_WATERMARK`
   (FIFO watermark) interrupt. For small transfers sizes, the final data
   read might not fill the FIFO sufficiently to trigger the watermark,
   preventing completion and leading to wait_for_completion_timeout()
   expiration.

Two patches have been prepared to resolve these issues.
-  [1/2] spi: cadence-quadspi: Prevent lost complete() call during
   indirect read
   Moving `reinit_completion()` before the inner loop prevents a race
   condition. This might cause a premature IRQ complete() call to occur;
   however, in the worst case, this will result in a spurious wakeup and
   another wait cycle, which is preferable to waiting for a timeout.

-  [2/2] spi: cadence-quadspi: Improve CQSPI_SLOW_SRAM quirk if flash is
   slow
   Re-enabling `CQSPI_REG_IRQ_IND_COMP` interrupt resolves the problem for
   small reads and removes the disabling of interrupts, addressing the
   issue with lost interrupts. This marginally increases the IRQ count.

   Test:
   $ dd if=/dev/mtd0 of=/dev/null bs=1M count=64
   Results from the Stratix10 platform with mt25qu02g flash.
   FIFO size in all tests: 128

   Serviced interrupt call counts:
   Without `CQSPI_SLOW_SRAM` quirk: 16 668 850
   With `CQSPI_SLOW_SRAM` quirk: 204 176
   With `CQSPI_SLOW_SRAM` and this patch: 224 528

Patch 2/2: Delivers a substantial read‑performance improvement for the
Cadence QSPI controller on the Stratix10 platform. Patch 1/2: Applies to
all platforms and should yield a modest performance gain, most noticeable
with large `CQSPI_READ_TIMEOUT_MS` values and workloads dominated by many
small reads.

---
Mateusz Litwin (2):
      spi: cadence-quadspi: Prevent lost complete() call during indirect read
      spi: cadence-quadspi: Improve CQSPI_SLOW_SRAM quirk if flash is slow

 drivers/spi/spi-cadence-quadspi.c | 23 +++++++++++------------
 1 file changed, 11 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-)
---
base-commit: f4acea9eef704607d1a950909ce3a52a770d6be2
change-id: 20251217-cqspi_indirect_read_improve-89a02d1f3c2c

Best regards,
-- 
Mateusz Litwin <mateusz.litwin@...ia.com>