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Multi-Function Devices (MFD)
These devices comprise a nexus for heterogeneous hardware blocks containing
more than one non-unique yet varying hardware functionality.
A typical MFD can be:
- A mixed signal ASIC on an external bus, sometimes a PMIC (Power Management
Integrated Circuit) that is manufactured in a lower technology node (rough
silicon) that handles analog drivers for things like audio amplifiers, LED
drivers, level shifters, PHY (physical interfaces to things like USB or
ethernet), regulators etc.
- A range of memory registers containing "miscellaneous system registers" also
known as a system controller "syscon" or any other memory range containing a
mix of unrelated hardware devices.
Optional properties:
- compatible : "simple-mfd" - this signifies that the operating system should
consider all subnodes of the MFD device as separate devices akin to how
"simple-bus" inidicates when to see subnodes as children for a simple
memory-mapped bus. For more complex devices, when the nexus driver has to
probe registers to figure out what child devices exist etc, this should not
be used. In the latter case the child devices will be determined by the
operating system.
Example:
foo@1000 {
compatible = "syscon", "simple-mfd";
reg = <0x01000 0x1000>;
led@08.0 {
compatible = "register-bit-led";
offset = <0x08>;
mask = <0x01>;
label = "myled";
default-state = "on";
};
};