Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 0/3] hw/arm/virt: Support Cortex-A57

[Christoffer Dall]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 06:54:40PM +0100, Peter Maydell wrote:
> This patchset wires up our new Cortex-A57 emulation into
> the "virt" machine model. Rather than the somewhat hacky
> approach in the previous system emulation patchsets, I've
> decided that our best approach is to have the board model
> create the GIC itself. This essentially corresponds to
> modelling a board with a standalone GIC -- you can see
> this in some real hardware which uses a GIC-400. I think
> this makes more sense than either borrowing the a15mpcore_priv
> device, or creating an a57mpcore_priv device (since the A57
> does not actually have a built-in GICv2).

So we're adding an incompletely modelled A57 to the virt board, and
adding a "board mounted" GICv2.  Doesn't sound like something that could
ever exist in real life, but I agree that the way we are tying things
together, semantically letting the board decide how to place the GIC
makes the most sense.

Oh well.  Let's implement GICv3 support some time.

-Christoffer