Documentation/gpu: Create a GC entry in the amdgpu documentation

GC is a large block that plays a vital role for amdgpu; for this reason,
this commit creates one specific page for GC and adds extra information
about the CP component.

Acked-by: Christian König <christian.koenig@amd.com>
Signed-off-by: Rodrigo Siqueira <siqueira@igalia.com>
Signed-off-by: Alex Deucher <alexander.deucher@amd.com>

diff --git a/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/driver-core.rst b/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/driver-core.rst
index d8500c9c961e812caa60613ebfab78ad3032c5e0..2c7f7299d7ad4a172e9e3526e5fed73f300c96bc 100644 (file)
--- a/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/driver-core.rst
+++ b/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/driver-core.rst
@@ -67,38 +67,16 @@ GC (Graphics and Compute)
     This is the graphics and compute engine, i.e., the block that
     encompasses the 3D pipeline and and shader blocks.  This is by far the
     largest block on the GPU.  The 3D pipeline has tons of sub-blocks.  In
-    addition to that, it also contains the CP microcontrollers (ME, PFP,
-    CE, MEC) and the RLC microcontroller.  It's exposed to userspace for
-    user mode drivers (OpenGL, Vulkan, OpenCL, etc.)
+    addition to that, it also contains the CP microcontrollers (ME, PFP, CE,
+    MEC) and the RLC microcontroller.  It's exposed to userspace for user mode
+    drivers (OpenGL, Vulkan, OpenCL, etc.). More details in :ref:`Graphics (GFX)
+    and Compute <amdgpu-gc>`.
 
 VCN (Video Core Next)
     This is the multi-media engine.  It handles video and image encode and
     decode.  It's exposed to userspace for user mode drivers (VA-API,
     OpenMAX, etc.)
 
-Graphics and Compute Microcontrollers
--------------------------------------
-
-CP (Command Processor)
-    The name for the hardware block that encompasses the front end of the
-    GFX/Compute pipeline.  Consists mainly of a bunch of microcontrollers
-    (PFP, ME, CE, MEC).  The firmware that runs on these microcontrollers
-    provides the driver interface to interact with the GFX/Compute engine.
-
-    MEC (MicroEngine Compute)
-        This is the microcontroller that controls the compute queues on the
-        GFX/compute engine.
-
-    MES (MicroEngine Scheduler)
-        This is a new engine for managing queues.  This is currently unused.
-
-RLC (RunList Controller)
-    This is another microcontroller in the GFX/Compute engine.  It handles
-    power management related functionality within the GFX/Compute engine.
-    The name is a vestige of old hardware where it was originally added
-    and doesn't really have much relation to what the engine does now.
-
-
 GFX, Compute, and SDMA Overall Behavior
 =======================================
 

diff --git a/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/gc/index.rst b/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/gc/index.rst
new file mode 100644 (file)
index 0000000..65ea93a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/gc/index.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+.. _amdgpu-gc:
+
+========================================
+ drm/amdgpu - Graphics and Compute (GC)
+========================================
+
+The relationship between the CPU and GPU can be described as the
+producer-consumer problem, where the CPU fills out a buffer with operations
+(producer) to be executed by the GPU (consumer). The requested operations in
+the buffer are called Command Packets, which can be summarized as a compressed
+way of transmitting command information to the graphics controller.
+
+The component that acts as the front end between the CPU and the GPU is called
+the Command Processor (CP). This component is responsible for providing greater
+flexibility to the GC since CP makes it possible to program various aspects of
+the GPU pipeline. CP also coordinates the communication between the CPU and GPU
+via a mechanism named **Ring Buffers**, where the CPU appends information to
+the buffer while the GPU removes operations. It is relevant to highlight that a
+CPU can add a pointer to the Ring Buffer that points to another region of
+memory outside the Ring Buffer, and CP can handle it; this mechanism is called
+**Indirect Buffer (IB)**. CP receives and parses the Command Streams (CS), and
+writes the operations to the correct hardware blocks.
+
+Graphics (GFX) and Compute Microcontrollers
+-------------------------------------------
+
+GC is a large block, and as a result, it has multiple firmware associated with
+it. Some of them are:
+
+CP (Command Processor)
+    The name for the hardware block that encompasses the front end of the
+    GFX/Compute pipeline. Consists mainly of a bunch of microcontrollers
+    (PFP, ME, CE, MEC). The firmware that runs on these microcontrollers
+    provides the driver interface to interact with the GFX/Compute engine.
+
+    MEC (MicroEngine Compute)
+        This is the microcontroller that controls the compute queues on the
+        GFX/compute engine.
+
+    MES (MicroEngine Scheduler)
+        This is the engine for managing queues.
+
+RLC (RunList Controller)
+    This is another microcontroller in the GFX/Compute engine. It handles
+    power management related functionality within the GFX/Compute engine.
+    The name is a vestige of old hardware where it was originally added
+    and doesn't really have much relation to what the engine does now.

diff --git a/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/index.rst b/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/index.rst
index 1fdc3ccb61c478f9dfed3ec6b0f930e2c272575b..bb2894b5edaf24c70aaa67cc1186caae339af298 100644 (file)
--- a/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/index.rst
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ Next (GCN), Radeon DNA (RDNA), and Compute DNA (CDNA) architectures.
    driver-core
    amd-hardware-list-info
    module-parameters
+   gc/index
    display/index
    flashing
    xgmi