Regulator API design notes
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==========================
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This document provides a brief, partially structured, overview of some
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of the design considerations which impact the regulator API design.
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Safety
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------
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- Errors in regulator configuration can have very serious consequences
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for the system, potentially including lasting hardware damage.
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- It is not possible to automatically determine the power configuration
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of the system - software-equivalent variants of the same chip may
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have different power requirements, and not all components with power
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requirements are visible to software.
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=> The API should make no changes to the hardware state unless it has
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specific knowledge that these changes are safe to perform on this
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particular system.
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Consumer use cases
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------------------
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- The overwhelming majority of devices in a system will have no
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requirement to do any runtime configuration of their power beyond
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being able to turn it on or off.
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- Many of the power supplies in the system will be shared between many
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different consumers.
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=> The consumer API should be structured so that these use cases are
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very easy to handle and so that consumers will work with shared
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supplies without any additional effort.
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