Marvell MMP2 and PXA910 mobile SoC framebuffer display
The on-chip display controller found in Marvell's early-2010s mobile application processors, specifically the MMP2 and PXA910 families that powered low-end smartphones, tablets, and e-readers around 2011 to 2013. It drives the LCD output through the legacy framebuffer interface rather than the modern DRM/KMS graphics stack.
recommendation
A candidate for future removal because the Marvell MMP2 and PXA910 SoCs it targets were already considered legacy by 2012, when Marvell moved on to PXA988 and later ARMADA PXA1908 platforms, and devices using this hardware have largely disappeared from active use. Recent kernel activity on the code in 2023 has been routine fbdev cleanup rather than meaningful feature work, and there is no modern DRM replacement for the same chips, so it is worth flagging for deprecation while leaving a window for any remaining users to speak up.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
Recent upstream activity on mmpfb was a 2023 fbdev cleanup ('Do not display boot-up logo'), not evidence of active feature work or modern deployment growth.
- cateee.net
LKDDb identifies CONFIG_MMP_FB as the Marvell MMP Display Subsystem framebuffer driver, built as module mmpfb for platform device 'mmp-fb'.
- marvell.com
By August 14, 2012 Marvell was already promoting PXA988/PXA986 as the next generation of its mobile application/communications SoCs, indicating the earlier PXA910/MMP2-era display hardware was legacy by the mid-2010s.
- marvell.com
By November 17, 2014 Marvell's mobile line had moved on to ARMADA Mobile PXA1908, reinforcing that MMP/PXA910-era framebuffer hardware was no longer a new-design target.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Static evidence from local shell reads of drivers/video/fbdev/mmp/Kconfig and fb/Kconfig ties this driver to Marvell MMP display hardware on CPU_PXA910 or CPU_MMP2. The lore URL was obtained via lore_file_timeline on drivers/video/fbdev/mmp/fb/mmpfb.c and shows only 2023 cleanup-style churn, with no removal-thread evidence surfaced. The LKDDb and Marvell newsroom URLs were obtained via web search. Taken together, this looks like an early-2010s fbdev driver for obsolete Marvell mobile SoCs, still buildable but with low present-day deployment and no clear in-tree replacement for the same hardware, so deprecate rather than remove.