AMD Starts Working On New Sound Code For Upcoming Platforms With Linux 5.18

The sound subsystem updates were sent in last week for the ongoing Linux 5.18 merge window. There is a lot of new audio hardware enablement and other improvements to find with this sound pull for the new kernel.

Among the new sound driver code in Linux 5.18 is for a generic PDM (Pulse Density Modulation) controller and generic PCI driver for non-DSP based audio with AMD's Audio Co-Processor (ACP). This new driver code is initially for ACP 3.x / Renoir platforms but AMD's code patches do explicitly mention this new ACP PCI/PDM driver code will be used to "support upcoming platform" and "other ACP architectures in near future."

In addition to the AMD PDM driver work, other new sound hardware support in Linux 5.18 includes the Atmel PDMC, Awinic AW8738, i.MX cards with TLV320AIC31xx, Intel systems with CS35L41 and ESSX8336 codecs, MediatekMT8181 WB Bluetooth, NVIDIA Tegra234, Qualcomm SC7280, Renesas RZ/V2L, and TI TAS585M. The Tegra234 support gets audio working for NVIDIA's Orin SoC.

On the Intel side the sound updates also include various Alder Lake changes and making use of NHLT ACPI table information to reduce the number of quirks required for Intel systems.

There are also various sound quirks added for Dell, HP, Lenovo, ASUS, Samsung and Clevo machines. Corsair audio devices also have some additional workarounds in this kernel too.

See this merged PR for more details on all of the sound changes to hear with Linux 5.18.