Re: [UPDATED v3][PATCH 1/7] regulator: consumer interface

[David Brownell <david-b@pacbell.net>]

On Tuesday 11 March 2008, David Brownell wrote:
> How would you see your notion of a "regulator" (client?)
> relating to a "power domain"?  My first thought is that
> there's a one-to-one correspondence but they may not be
> quite the same thing.  Example, one might want to ask the
> domain what devices it supports ... so that you could ask
> them all to power off.

Actually, it's clearly not one-to-one.  Counter-example:
a 3V3 regulator powering one of a SOC's I/O power domains,
which is managed by a digital switch.  That same regulator
can power several I/O devices too.  It may even feed a 1V8
regulator.

So the relationship is probably that regulators define a
domain ... but such domains can be subdivided.  There's
a tree; it's probably more shallow than the clock tree.

And enable/disable primitives probably map best to power
domains, not all of which are entire regulators.

- Dave