Linux 6.3 Brings Audio Support For Tesla's Full Self-Driving SoC

Linux sound subsystem maintainer Takashi Iwai sent in the sound driver updates early for the Linux 6.3 cycle that is set to open following today's Linux 6.2 stable kernel release. Notable among the new audio hardware support is enabling Tesla's Full Self Driving "FSD" SoC support.

The past year Tesla and Samsung, who designed the SoC for Tesla, have been enabling the Tesla FSD SoC for the upstream Linux kernel. While most Tesla owners likely won't be trying to run their own modified Linux kernel on the cars, getting the FSD SoC support upstream can save on Tesla/Samsung having to continue maintaining their patches out-of-tree against each time they re-base their Linux kernel build. It's a win for having the hardware support upstream.

Over the past year they have been upstreaming a lot of the Tesla FSD SoC features and with Linux 6.3 they have audio support now working. Changes to the Samsung I2S ASoC driver code are necessary along with DeviceTree updates for enabling the audio support for the Tesla FSD SoC.

Along with enabling the Tesla/Samsung FSD SoC audio support, the sound pull request for Linux 6.3 also includes enabling the Awinc AT88395, Infineon PEB2466, Iron Device SMA1303, Mediatek MT8188, Realtek RT712, Renesas IDT821034, and TI TAS5720A-Q1 hardware. Work on the Intel AVS driver also remains ongoing.

The full list of sound feature patches slated for Linux 6.3 can be found via this pull request.