Cirrus Logic EP93xx ARM9 SoC platform support
Low-level platform glue for Cirrus Logic's EP93xx family of ARM9-based system-on-chip parts (EP9301, EP9302, EP9307, EP9312, EP9315), which were introduced around 2007 for industrial and embedded products such as set-top boxes, point-of-sale terminals, and single-board computers. It handles the SoC's system controller and brings up auxiliary on-chip devices during boot.
recommendation
Worth keeping but flagging as legacy because the EP93xx silicon is no longer in active production and what remains on the market is new-old-stock. Despite the hardware's age, the code itself was freshly added in mid-2024 as part of an ongoing device-tree conversion effort for EP93xx boards, and OpenWrt still lists ep93xx as a supported target, so a small community of industrial and hobbyist users is actively relying on it.
repository signals
sources
- spinics.net
Patch v11 07/38 from July 15, 2024 introduced this exact driver, showing recent upstream development rather than abandonment.
- lkml.org
The broader 2024 EP93xx device-tree conversion series included this SoC driver and other EP93xx updates, indicating active maintenance for legacy EP93xx support.
- openwrt.org
OpenWrt still lists ep93xx as a working target, which is evidence of present-day niche deployments.
- cateee.net
LKDDb shows CONFIG_EP93XX_SOC present in current kernels and maps it to EP9301/9302/9307/9312/9315 syscon compatibles.
- digikey.com
The EP93xx user guide is a 2007-era document describing the family as an older ARM9 embedded SoC line for industrial/embedded products, supporting the view that this is legacy hardware.
- lisleapex.com
A component listing marks EP9315-CBZ as obsolete while showing inventory, consistent with new-old-stock rather than an actively marketed 2025 product family.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local shell inspection showed this is a real builtin platform driver (`soc-ep93xx.c`) for Cirrus EP93xx syscon/auxiliary-device bring-up, not a helper library. Upstream activity check used local `git log` plus web search because `lei` was unavailable and direct lore search returned no fetchable result; the 2024 patch-series URLs from Spinics/LKML show the driver was newly added as part of active EP93xx DT conversion work, and no removal discussion was found in the available search budget. Deployment evidence came from web search hits on OpenWrt and LKDDb, which suggest the hardware persists in low-volume legacy/industrial niches. Hardware sale status is inferred as not truly still sold new in 2025 because the family is documented as 2007-era and available listings look like obsolete/NOS inventory, not current-production silicon. That argues against deprecation or removal, but warrants annotation as legacy/niche support.