linux-drivers/
drivers/gpu/drm/renesas/shmobile

Renesas SH-Mobile and R-Mobile A1 LCD controllers

Drives the on-chip LCD controller found in Renesas SH-Mobile (sh73a0) and R-Mobile A1 (r8a7740) application processors, ARM SoCs from the early 2010s that powered portable navigation devices, handhelds, and similar embedded Japanese consumer electronics. Renesas has since marked these processor families obsolete.

keep-annotate conf=0.86 deploy=low replacement=none subsystem=gpu category=graphics-display
86%

recommendation

Worth keeping but flagging as legacy. The SoCs it targets are obsolete and only ever appeared in a narrow set of portable Japanese devices, but upstream maintainers are still touching the code as recently as mid-2025, so it isn't truly abandoned. A note marking it as legacy hardware support would help future readers understand its niche status.

repository signals

11 files
1,896 source lines
52 commits, 5y
+2,854 / −935 lines added / removed, 5y
11 authors, 5y
monthly commits · 2021-04-21 → 2026-04-21 · 52 total · active in 11/61 months
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sources

  1. renesas.com

    Renesas marks the related R-Mobile A1 family as Obsolete and describes it as a legacy application processor line for PND/portable devices.

  2. cateee.net

    LKDDb shows CONFIG_DRM_SHMOBILE is still present in current kernels and maps this driver to DT compatibles renesas,r8a7740-lcdc and renesas,sh73a0-lcdc.

codex reasoning notes (technical)

Real driver directory: contains shmob-drm platform DRM driver code. Local shell inspection (`sed`, `rg`) showed OF compatibles for sh73a0/r8a7740; local `git -c safe.directory=... log` showed active upstream maintenance through 2025-07-16 with many non-removal changes and no clear removal/deprecation series. Web search yielded the Renesas R-Mobile A1 product page and LKDDb page above. Conclusion: hardware appears obsolete and niche, but upstream attention is still real, so keep the driver but annotate it as legacy rather than deprecate/remove.