1 Multi-Function Devices (MFD)
3 These devices comprise a nexus for heterogeneous hardware blocks containing
4 more than one non-unique yet varying hardware functionality.
8 - A mixed signal ASIC on an external bus, sometimes a PMIC (Power Management
9 Integrated Circuit) that is manufactured in a lower technology node (rough
10 silicon) that handles analog drivers for things like audio amplifiers, LED
11 drivers, level shifters, PHY (physical interfaces to things like USB or
12 ethernet), regulators etc.
14 - A range of memory registers containing "miscellaneous system registers" also
15 known as a system controller "syscon" or any other memory range containing a
16 mix of unrelated hardware devices.
20 - compatible : "simple-mfd" - this signifies that the operating system should
21 consider all subnodes of the MFD device as separate devices akin to how
22 "simple-bus" indicates when to see subnodes as children for a simple
23 memory-mapped bus. For more complex devices, when the nexus driver has to
24 probe registers to figure out what child devices exist etc, this should not
25 be used. In the latter case the child devices will be determined by the
28 - ranges: Describes the address mapping relationship to the parent. Should set
29 the child's base address to 0, the physical address within parent's address
30 space, and the length of the address map.
32 - #address-cells: Specifies the number of cells used to represent physical base
33 addresses. Must be present if ranges is used.
35 - #size-cells: Specifies the number of cells used to represent the size of an
36 address. Must be present if ranges is used.
41 compatible = "syscon", "simple-mfd";
42 reg = <0x01000 0x1000>;
45 compatible = "register-bit-led";