firmware: add firmware_request_cache() to help with cache on reboot

Some devices have an optimization in place to enable the firmware to
be retaineed during a system reboot, so after reboot the device can skip
requesting and loading the firmware. This can save up to 1s in load
time. The mt7601u 802.11 device happens to be such a device.

When these devices retain the firmware on a reboot and then suspend
they can miss looking for the firmware on resume. To help with this we
need a way to cache the firmware when such an optimization has taken
place.

Signed-off-by: Luis R. Rodriguez <mcgrof@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>

1 files changed, 14 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/driver-api/firmware/request_firmware.rst b/Documentation/driver-api/firmware/request_firmware.rst
index cc0aea880824..cf4516dfbf96 100644
--- a/Documentation/driver-api/firmware/request_firmware.rst
+++ b/Documentation/driver-api/firmware/request_firmware.rst
@@ -44,6 +44,20 @@ request_firmware_nowait
 .. kernel-doc:: drivers/base/firmware_class.c
    :functions: request_firmware_nowait
 
+Special optimizations on reboot
+===============================
+
+Some devices have an optimization in place to enable the firmware to be
+retained during system reboot. When such optimizations are used the driver
+author must ensure the firmware is still available on resume from suspend,
+this can be done with firmware_request_cache() insted of requesting for the
+firmare to be loaded.
+
+firmware_request_cache()
+-----------------------
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/base/firmware_class.c
+   :functions: firmware_request_cache
+
 request firmware API expected driver use
 ========================================