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backlight: add low threshold to pwm backlight
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The intensity of the backlight can be varied from a range of
max_brightness to zero.  Though most, if not all the pwm based backlight
devices start flickering at lower brightness value.  And also for each
device there exists a brightness value below which the backlight appears
to be turned off though the value is not equal to zero.

If the range of brightness for a device is from zero to max_brightness.  A
graph is plotted for brightness Vs intensity for the pwm based backlight
device has to be a linear graph.

intensity
	  |   /
	  |  /
	  | /
	  |/
	  ---------
	 0	max_brightness

But pratically on measuring the above we note that the intensity of
backlight goes to zero(OFF) when the value in not zero almost nearing to
zero(some x%).  so the graph looks like

intensity
	  |    /
	  |   /
	  |  /
	  |  |
	  ------------
	 0   x	 max_brightness

In order to overcome this drawback knowing this x% i.e nothing but the low
threshold beyond which the backlight is off and will have no effect, the
brightness value is being offset by the low threshold value(retaining the
linearity of the graph).  Now the graph becomes

intensity
	  |     /
	  |    /
	  |   /
	  |  /
	  -------------
	   0	  max_brightness

With this for each and every digit increment in the brightness from zero
there is a change in the intensity of backlight.  Devices having this
behaviour can set the low threshold brightness(lth_brightness) and pass
the same as platform data else can have it as zero.

[[email protected]: coding-style fixes]
Signed-off-by: Arun Murthy <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Linus Walleij <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Richard Purdie <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <[email protected]>
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Arun Murthy authored and torvalds committed Nov 12, 2010
1 parent a1025e2 commit fef7764
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Showing 2 changed files with 7 additions and 1 deletion.
7 changes: 6 additions & 1 deletion drivers/video/backlight/pwm_bl.c
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ struct pwm_bl_data {
struct pwm_device *pwm;
struct device *dev;
unsigned int period;
unsigned int lth_brightness;
int (*notify)(struct device *,
int brightness);
};
Expand All @@ -48,7 +49,9 @@ static int pwm_backlight_update_status(struct backlight_device *bl)
pwm_config(pb->pwm, 0, pb->period);
pwm_disable(pb->pwm);
} else {
pwm_config(pb->pwm, brightness * pb->period / max, pb->period);
brightness = pb->lth_brightness +
(brightness * (pb->period - pb->lth_brightness) / max);
pwm_config(pb->pwm, brightness, pb->period);
pwm_enable(pb->pwm);
}
return 0;
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -92,6 +95,8 @@ static int pwm_backlight_probe(struct platform_device *pdev)

pb->period = data->pwm_period_ns;
pb->notify = data->notify;
pb->lth_brightness = data->lth_brightness *
(data->pwm_period_ns / data->max_brightness);
pb->dev = &pdev->dev;

pb->pwm = pwm_request(data->pwm_id, "backlight");
Expand Down
1 change: 1 addition & 0 deletions include/linux/pwm_backlight.h
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ struct platform_pwm_backlight_data {
int pwm_id;
unsigned int max_brightness;
unsigned int dft_brightness;
unsigned int lth_brightness;
unsigned int pwm_period_ns;
int (*init)(struct device *dev);
int (*notify)(struct device *dev, int brightness);
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