--- /dev/null
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+============
+I3C protocol
+============
+
+Disclaimer
+==========
+
+This chapter will focus on aspects that matter to software developers. For
+everything hardware related (like how things are transmitted on the bus, how
+collisions are prevented, ...) please have a look at the I3C specification.
+
+This document is just a brief introduction to the I3C protocol and the concepts
+it brings to the table. If you need more information, please refer to the MIPI
+I3C specification (can be downloaded here
+http://resources.mipi.org/mipi-i3c-v1-download).
+
+Introduction
+============
+
+The I3C (pronounced 'eye-three-see') is a MIPI standardized protocol designed
+to overcome I2C limitations (limited speed, external signals needed for
+interrupts, no automatic detection of the devices connected to the bus, ...)
+while remaining power-efficient.
+
+I3C Bus
+=======
+
+An I3C bus is made of several I3C devices and possibly some I2C devices as
+well, but let's focus on I3C devices for now.
+
+An I3C device on the I3C bus can have one of the following roles:
+
+* Master: the device is driving the bus. It's the one in charge of initiating
+ transactions or deciding who is allowed to talk on the bus (slave generated
+ events are possible in I3C, see below).
+* Slave: the device acts as a slave, and is not able to send frames to another
+ slave on the bus. The device can still send events to the master on
+ its own initiative if the master allowed it.
+
+I3C is a multi-master protocol, so there might be several masters on a bus,
+though only one device can act as a master at a given time. In order to gain
+bus ownership, a master has to follow a specific procedure.
+
+Each device on the I3C bus has to be assigned a dynamic address to be able to
+communicate. Until this is done, the device should only respond to a limited
+set of commands. If it has a static address (also called legacy I2C address),
+the device can reply to I2C transfers.
+
+In addition to these per-device addresses, the protocol defines a broadcast
+address in order to address all devices on the bus.
+
+Once a dynamic address has been assigned to a device, this address will be used
+for any direct communication with the device. Note that even after being
+assigned a dynamic address, the device should still process broadcast messages.
+
+I3C Device discovery
+====================
+
+The I3C protocol defines a mechanism to automatically discover devices present
+on the bus, their capabilities and the functionalities they provide. In this
+regard I3C is closer to a discoverable bus like USB than it is to I2C or SPI.
+
+The discovery mechanism is called DAA (Dynamic Address Assignment), because it
+not only discovers devices but also assigns them a dynamic address.
+
+During DAA, each I3C device reports 3 important things:
+
+* BCR: Bus Characteristic Register. This 8-bit register describes the device bus
+ related capabilities
+* DCR: Device Characteristic Register. This 8-bit register describes the
+ functionalities provided by the device
+* Provisional ID: A 48-bit unique identifier. On a given bus there should be no
+ Provisional ID collision, otherwise the discovery mechanism may fail.
+
+I3C slave events
+================
+
+The I3C protocol allows slaves to generate events on their own, and thus allows
+them to take temporary control of the bus.
+
+This mechanism is called IBI for In Band Interrupts, and as stated in the name,
+it allows devices to generate interrupts without requiring an external signal.
+
+During DAA, each device on the bus has been assigned an address, and this
+address will serve as a priority identifier to determine who wins if 2 different
+devices are generating an interrupt at the same moment on the bus (the lower the
+dynamic address the higher the priority).
+
+Masters are allowed to inhibit interrupts if they want to. This inhibition
+request can be broadcast (applies to all devices) or sent to a specific
+device.
+
+I3C Hot-Join
+============
+
+The Hot-Join mechanism is similar to USB hotplug. This mechanism allows
+slaves to join the bus after it has been initialized by the master.
+
+This covers the following use cases:
+
+* the device is not powered when the bus is probed
+* the device is hotplugged on the bus through an extension board
+
+This mechanism is relying on slave events to inform the master that a new
+device joined the bus and is waiting for a dynamic address.
+
+The master is then free to address the request as it wishes: ignore it or
+assign a dynamic address to the slave.
+
+I3C transfer types
+==================
+
+If you omit SMBus (which is just a standardization on how to access registers
+exposed by I2C devices), I2C has only one transfer type.
+
+I3C defines 3 different classes of transfer in addition to I2C transfers which
+are here for backward compatibility with I2C devices.
+
+I3C CCC commands
+----------------
+
+CCC (Common Command Code) commands are meant to be used for anything that is
+related to bus management and all features that are common to a set of devices.
+
+CCC commands contain an 8-bit CCC ID describing the command that is executed.
+The MSB of this ID specifies whether this is a broadcast command (bit7 = 0) or a
+unicast one (bit7 = 1).
+
+The command ID can be followed by a payload. Depending on the command, this
+payload is either sent by the master sending the command (write CCC command),
+or sent by the slave receiving the command (read CCC command). Of course, read
+accesses only apply to unicast commands.
+Note that, when sending a CCC command to a specific device, the device address
+is passed in the first byte of the payload.
+
+The payload length is not explicitly passed on the bus, and should be extracted
+from the CCC ID.
+
+Note that vendors can use a dedicated range of CCC IDs for their own commands
+(0x61-0x7f and 0xe0-0xef).
+
+I3C Private SDR transfers
+-------------------------
+
+Private SDR (Single Data Rate) transfers should be used for anything that is
+device specific and does not require high transfer speed.
+
+It is the equivalent of I2C transfers but in the I3C world. Each transfer is
+passed the device address (dynamic address assigned during DAA), a payload
+and a direction.
+
+The only difference with I2C is that the transfer is much faster (typical clock
+frequency is 12.5MHz).
+
+I3C HDR commands
+----------------
+
+HDR commands should be used for anything that is device specific and requires
+high transfer speed.
+
+The first thing attached to an HDR command is the HDR mode. There are currently
+3 different modes defined by the I3C specification (refer to the specification
+for more details):
+
+* HDR-DDR: Double Data Rate mode
+* HDR-TSP: Ternary Symbol Pure. Only usable on busses with no I2C devices
+* HDR-TSL: Ternary Symbol Legacy. Usable on busses with I2C devices
+
+When sending an HDR command, the whole bus has to enter HDR mode, which is done
+using a broadcast CCC command.
+Once the bus has entered a specific HDR mode, the master sends the HDR command.
+An HDR command is made of:
+
+* one 16-bits command word in big endian
+* N 16-bits data words in big endian
+
+Those words may be wrapped with specific preambles/post-ambles which depend on
+the chosen HDR mode and are detailed here (see the specification for more
+details).
+
+The 16-bits command word is made of:
+
+* bit[15]: direction bit, read is 1, write is 0
+* bit[14:8]: command code. Identifies the command being executed, the amount of
+ data words and their meaning
+* bit[7:1]: I3C address of the device this command is addressed to
+* bit[0]: reserved/parity-bit
+
+Backward compatibility with I2C devices
+=======================================
+
+The I3C protocol has been designed to be backward compatible with I2C devices.
+This backward compatibility allows one to connect a mix of I2C and I3C devices
+on the same bus, though, in order to be really efficient, I2C devices should
+be equipped with 50 ns spike filters.
+
+I2C devices can't be discovered like I3C ones and have to be statically
+declared. In order to let the master know what these devices are capable of
+(both in terms of bus related limitations and functionalities), the software
+has to provide some information, which is done through the LVR (Legacy I2C
+Virtual Register).