The NXP i.MX8QXP CPU has four SPI buses.

On the ConnectCore 8X system-on-module:

  • All four SPI ports are available (multiplexed with other functionality) either on the castellated or LGA pads

On the ConnectCore 8X SBC Pro:

  • SPI0 port is available at the expansion header with two chip selects (CS0 and CS1)

Kernel configuration

You can manage the SPI driver support through the kernel configuration option:

  • Freescale i.MX LPSPI controller (CONFIG_SPI_FSL_LPSPI)

This option is enabled as built-in on the default ConnectCore 8X kernel configuration file.

Kernel driver

The SPI bus driver for the ConnectCore 8X system-on-module is located at drivers/spi/spi-fsl-lpspi.c.

Device tree bindings and customization

The i.MX8QXP SPI interface device tree binding is documented at Documentation/devicetree/bindings/spi/fsl-imx-cspi.txt.

The common i.MX8QXP CPU device tree defines all the SPI ports. The platform device tree must:

  • Enable the required SPI port, by setting the status property to okay.

  • Choose the chip selects using property cs-gpios and their number using property fsl,spi-num-chipselects.

  • Configure the IOMUX of the pads that will work as SPI port.

  • Add the SPI slave devices as children of the SPI bus node.

Example: SPI0 port (as master) on the ConnectCore 8X SBC Pro

ConnectCore 8X SBC Pro device tree
&lpspi0 {
	#address-cells = <1>;
	#size-cells = <0>;
	pinctrl-names = "default";
	pinctrl-0 = <&pinctrl_lpspi0>;
	status = "okay";
};

&iomuxc {
	pinctrl_lpspi0: lpspi0grp {
		fsl,pins = <
			SC_P_SPI0_SCK_ADMA_SPI0_SCK	0x0600004c
			SC_P_SPI0_SDO_ADMA_SPI0_SDO	0x0600004c
			SC_P_SPI0_SDI_ADMA_SPI0_SDI	0x0600004c
			SC_P_SPI0_CS0_ADMA_SPI0_CS0	0x0600004c
			SC_P_SPI0_CS1_ADMA_SPI0_CS1	0x0600004c
		>;
	};
};

SPI user space usage

The SPI bus cannot be accessed directly from user space. Instead, it is accessed via the SPI client drivers. However, a special sample client driver allows raw access to the SPI bus.

SPI device interface

The Linux kernel offers a sample client driver called spidev that gives you read and write data access to the SPI bus through the /dev interface. You can find this driver under the kernel configuration option User mode SPI device driver support (CONFIG_SPI_SPIDEV). On Digi Embedded Yocto this driver is enabled as a loadable module. The default device tree includes the spidev node in the device tree as an SPI device hanging from the SPI bus:

ConnectCore 8X SBC Pro device tree
/* LPSPI0 on expansion header */
&lpspi0 {
	status = "okay";

	/*
	 * Add your slave devices here. Next is an example of spidev.
	 * Expect a harmless kernel warning if you enable spidev as slave.
	 */
	spidev@0 {
		compatible = "spidev";
		reg = <0>;
		spi-max-frequency = <4000000>;
	};
};

To use it, load the spidev module from user space:

~# modprobe spidev
spidev spi32766.0: buggy DT: spidev listed directly in DT
Spidev is not a real hardware SPI slave device but a detail of how Linux controls a device. Expect a harmless kernel warning if you enable spidev as slave on the device tree. For reference, see https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=956b200a846e324322f6211034c734c65a38e550

Linux will create a device node in the form /dev/spidevX.Y device node where:

  • X corresponds to the SPI port index, starting from 32766 downwards.

  • Y corresponds to the SPI bus chip select, starting from 0 upwards.

Sample application

An example application called apix-spi-example is included in the dey-examples-digiapix recipe (part of dey-examples package) of meta-digi layer. This application is an example of how to write data to an external EEPROM (24FC1026) and read it back using Digi APIx library on the ConnectCore 8X platform.

Go to GitHub to see the application instructions and source code.

See SPI API for more information about the SPI APIx.