Samsung S3FWRN5 and S3FWRN82 NFC controllers
Near-field communication chips Samsung introduced in 2014 for mid-range and flagship smartphones, used for tap-to-pay, pairing, and tag reading. The kernel code covers both the original S3FWRN5 (over I2C) and the related S3FWRN82 (over UART), which appeared in various Samsung Galaxy handsets of that era.
recommendation
Worth keeping but documenting its niche, because the hardware is a 2014-era mobile NFC part that Samsung had already begun superseding with the S3FWRN5P in 2015, yet the driver still receives genuine upstream maintenance (a 2025 patch switched it to the SHA-1 library) and remains the only support path for these chips. Real-world users today are mostly hobbyists running postmarketOS on older Galaxy phones, so it is low-volume but not abandoned.
repository signals
sources
- lkml.org
Upstream still accepts non-trivial maintenance for this driver in 2025 (`nfc: s3fwrn5: Use SHA-1 library instead of crypto_shash`).
- cateee.net
The core driver is still present through current kernel heads and maps to `drivers/nfc/s3fwrn5`.
- cateee.net
The directory also covers the related S3FWRN82 UART transport, present in current kernel heads.
- news.samsung.com
Samsung introduced S3FWRN5 in 2014 and positioned it for then-current flagship phones, indicating an older mobile NFC generation.
- news.samsung.com
Samsung announced the newer S3FWRN5P in 2015, supporting the inference that original S3FWRN5 family was already being succeeded by 2015.
- wiki.postmarketos.org
Current hobbyist/mainline-phone usage still exists on legacy Samsung devices; postmarketOS documents variants using `s3fwrn5`.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Real driver directory: Kconfig/i2c/uart/core files and module driver macros. Local shell inspection (`rg`, `sed`) identified Samsung S3FWRN5/S3FWRN82 NFC transports. Local `git -c safe.directory=... log -- drivers/nfc/s3fwrn5` showed substantive fixes through 2026-04-03, so this is not abandoned. `web.search_query` for lore removal discussion returned no lore hits, while `web.search_query` found a 2025 LKML patch URL showing continued maintenance. `web.search_query` also found Samsung's 2014 launch page and 2015 successor S3FWRN5P page; from that timeline I infer the original family stopped being widely available by 2015 and is not a new-2025 design win. `web.search_query` found LKDDb pages confirming the driver remains in current kernel heads and a postmarketOS device page showing residual legacy deployments. Because upstream activity is still real but present-day use looks legacy/low-volume and there is no direct replacement driver for the same chips, `keep-annotate` fits better than deprecate/remove.