drivers/phy/freescale · keep

NXP/Freescale i.MX and Layerscape SoC PHY drivers

Low-level PHY (physical layer) blocks built into NXP's i.MX8 and i.MX95 application processors and Layerscape networking SoCs, including USB PHYs and the Lynx 28G high-speed SerDes used for Ethernet and PCIe links. These chips ship today in industrial, automotive, and edge-networking designs.

keep conf=0.93 deploy=medium replacement=none subsystem=phy category=bus-other

93%

recommendation

It should stay because it supports current NXP silicon that is still sold and actively designed in. NXP lists both i.MX95 and the Layerscape LS1028A as active products in 2026, upstream patch traffic continues to touch this directory, and because these PHYs are integrated into the SoCs themselves there is no alternate driver that could replace them.

repository signals

9 files

4,857 source lines

81 commits, 5y

+5,345 / −1,131 lines added / removed, 5y

29 authors, 5y

monthly commits · 2021-04-21 → 2026-04-21 · 81 total · active in 34/61 months

sources

lore.kernel.org
Recent 2026 upstream patch traffic still touched files under drivers/phy/freescale, indicating active maintenance rather than removal.
nxp.com
NXP lists i.MX95 as Active; this directory explicitly contains support for fsl,imx95-usb-phy, so covered hardware is current rather than legacy-only.
nxp.com
NXP lists LS1028A as Active; the directory's Lynx 28G SerDes driver targets current Layerscape SoCs used in industrial/edge designs.

codex reasoning notes (technical)

Local `rg` over drivers/phy/freescale showed active SoC-specific PHY drivers for i.MX8, i.MX95 USB PHY, and Layerscape Lynx 28G SerDes. `lore_activity` on representative files returned 2026 patch traffic with lore permalinks; no removal evidence was found in the gathered lore data. NXP product pages were obtained via web search and show i.MX95 and LS1028A as Active in 2026, so the hardware is still sold and relevant. Because these are board/SoC-integrated PHY blocks, there is no natural upstream replacement driver beyond keeping these per-SoC drivers maintained.