1spi_lm70llp :  LM70-LLP parport-to-SPI adapter
2==============================================
3
4Supported board/chip:
5  * National Semiconductor LM70 LLP evaluation board
6    Datasheet: http://www.national.com/pf/LM/LM70.html
7
8Author:
9        Kaiwan N Billimoria <kaiwan@designergraphix.com>
10
11Description
12-----------
13This driver provides glue code connecting a National Semiconductor LM70 LLP
14temperature sensor evaluation board to the kernel's SPI core subsystem.
15
16This is a SPI master controller driver. It can be used in conjunction with
17(layered under) the LM70 logical driver (a "SPI protocol driver").
18In effect, this driver turns the parallel port interface on the eval board
19into a SPI bus with a single device, which will be driven by the generic
20LM70 driver (drivers/hwmon/lm70.c).
21
22
23Hardware Interfacing
24--------------------
25The schematic for this particular board (the LM70EVAL-LLP) is
26available (on page 4) here:
27
28  http://www.national.com/appinfo/tempsensors/files/LM70LLPEVALmanual.pdf
29
30The hardware interfacing on the LM70 LLP eval board is as follows:
31
32   Parallel                 LM70 LLP
33     Port      Direction   JP2 Header
34   ----------- --------- ----------------
35      D0     2      -         -
36      D1     3     -->      V+   5
37      D2     4     -->      V+   5
38      D3     5     -->      V+   5
39      D4     6     -->      V+   5
40      D5     7     -->      nCS  8
41      D6     8     -->      SCLK 3
42      D7     9     -->      SI/O 5
43     GND    25      -       GND  7
44    Select  13     <--      SI/O 1
45   ----------- --------- ----------------
46
47Note that since the LM70 uses a "3-wire" variant of SPI, the SI/SO pin
48is connected to both pin D7 (as Master Out) and Select (as Master In)
49using an arrangement that lets either the parport or the LM70 pull the
50pin low.  This can't be shared with true SPI devices, but other 3-wire
51devices might share the same SI/SO pin.
52
53The bitbanger routine in this driver (lm70_txrx) is called back from
54the bound "hwmon/lm70" protocol driver through its sysfs hook, using a
55spi_write_then_read() call.  It performs Mode 0 (SPI/Microwire) bitbanging.
56The lm70 driver then inteprets the resulting digital temperature value
57and exports it through sysfs.
58
59A "gotcha": National Semiconductor's LM70 LLP eval board circuit schematic
60shows that the SI/O line from the LM70 chip is connected to the base of a
61transistor Q1 (and also a pullup, and a zener diode to D7); while the
62collector is tied to VCC.
63
64Interpreting this circuit, when the LM70 SI/O line is High (or tristate
65and not grounded by the host via D7), the transistor conducts and switches
66the collector to zero, which is reflected on pin 13 of the DB25 parport
67connector.  When SI/O is Low (driven by the LM70 or the host) on the other
68hand, the transistor is cut off and the voltage tied to it's collector is
69reflected on pin 13 as a High level.
70
71So: the getmiso inline routine in this driver takes this fact into account,
72inverting the value read at pin 13.
73
74
75Thanks to
76---------
77o David Brownell for mentoring the SPI-side driver development.
78o Dr.Craig Hollabaugh for the (early) "manual" bitbanging driver version.
79o Nadir Billimoria for help interpreting the circuit schematic.
80