Bosch M_CAN CAN and CAN-FD controllers
A widely licensed Bosch CAN and CAN-FD controller IP block found inside many automotive and industrial microcontrollers, SoCs, and standalone chips such as the TI TCAN4550. It handles the bus communication used by car ECUs, factory equipment, and other embedded systems that talk over Controller Area Network links, and it remains in active production silicon as of 2025.
recommendation
It should stay in the kernel because the Bosch M_CAN IP block is actively used in current silicon, including TI's TCAN4550 (still marked active in 2025) and many automotive and embedded SoCs that license the IP from Bosch. Upstream activity is healthy, with 141 substantive commits in the last five years, stable backports as recent as October 2025, and new feature work landing on linux-can into early 2026. There is no replacement driver — board-specific wrappers depend on this core — so removing it would break currently shipping hardware.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
Upstream linux-can still carried new m_can feature work in February 2026, indicating active maintenance rather than retirement.
- lore.kernel.org
m_can fixes were backported to stable in October 2025, showing current production relevance and ongoing bug-fix traffic.
- bosch-semiconductors.com
Bosch still markets M_CAN as a current CAN/CAN-FD IP module for ASIC/FPGA/standalone integration.
- ti.com
TI still lists the TCAN4550 as ACTIVE and states it uses Bosch M_CAN Revision 3.2.1.1, showing current deployable silicon based on this IP family.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Keep: static metadata already showed 141 substantive commits in 5y, and lore_file_timeline/lore_activity confirmed heavy recent traffic plus stable backports through 2025 and new linux-can work in 2026. Bosch and TI URLs were obtained via web search; lore URLs came from lore_file_timeline/lore_activity. Bosch/TI evidence indicates the IP family remains sold into new embedded/automotive designs, so this is not legacy-only hardware. No natural replacement driver exists for the same Bosch M_CAN IP block; board-specific wrappers still depend on this core driver. A removal-themed lore_regex subject search timed out twice, so absence of removal discussion is an inference from strong positive activity, not a direct negative proof.