diff --git a/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable.h b/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable.h
index 6700371227d1..fd40fb05eb51 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable.h
+++ b/arch/arm64/include/asm/pgtable.h
@@ -435,6 +435,14 @@ static inline pmd_t pmd_mkdevmap(pmd_t pmd)
 	__pgprot_modify(prot, PTE_ATTRINDX_MASK, PTE_ATTRINDX(MT_NORMAL_NC) | PTE_PXN | PTE_UXN)
 #define pgprot_device(prot) \
 	__pgprot_modify(prot, PTE_ATTRINDX_MASK, PTE_ATTRINDX(MT_DEVICE_nGnRE) | PTE_PXN | PTE_UXN)
+/*
+ * DMA allocations for non-coherent devices use what the Arm architecture calls
+ * "Normal non-cacheable" memory, which permits speculation, unaligned accesses
+ * and merging of writes.  This is different from "Device-nGnR[nE]" memory which
+ * is intended for MMIO and thus forbids speculation, preserves access size,
+ * requires strict alignment and can also force write responses to come from the
+ * endpoint.
+ */
 #define pgprot_dmacoherent(prot) \
 	__pgprot_modify(prot, PTE_ATTRINDX_MASK, \
 			PTE_ATTRINDX(MT_NORMAL_NC) | PTE_PXN | PTE_UXN)