Re: [PATCH v2 1/5] Documentation: ABI: IIO: add calibconv_delay documentation

[David Lechner]

On 5/4/25 10:16 AM, Jonathan Cameron wrote:
> On Fri, 02 May 2025 15:26:58 +0200
> Angelo Dureghello <adureghello@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
>> From: Angelo Dureghello <adureghello@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>
>> Add new IIO calibconv_delay documentation.
>>
>> The ad7606 implements a phase calibation feature, in nanoseconds.
>> Being this a time delay, using the conv_delay suffix.
> I made a late reply to v1...
> 
> Key point being that, in the general sense this is only a calibration
> thing if it is both writeable and we are using it for filter phase correction.
> In more general terms it's just a conversion sampling time offset (and as you have
> it here in seconds).  I'm keen we define this to incorporate more general
> cases including extra read only info on sequencer timing - that can be useful
> if we have something like 
>                  _____________
> Input 0 --------|             |
> Input 1 --------| 4 in, 2 out |-----  ADC0
> Input 2 --------|  MUX        |
> Input 3 --------|_____________|-----  ADC1
> 
> That is the ability to schedule more channels across a small number of
> simultaneous sampling ADCs.  In these cases we've never had a way to
> express what was done together.  Mostly there have been obvious
> combinations (i.e. voltage and current at same time on a given wire for
> power measurement), but it would still be nice to use your new interface
> to allow us to describe what is running here (though probably not control
> it as that would be hard to do!)
> 
I'm totally on board with making this more general than just calibration, but
having worked on a couple of multiplexed simultaneous sampling ADCs like this,
I'm scratching my head a bit trying to figure out how we would be able to know
what the delay was between the conversions, at least in cases where we don't
have a hardware conversion trigger based on a clock/pwm. Generally, it is as
fast as the SPI bus can bang it out, but that isn't a fixed or predictable
amount of time.