NVIDIA Tegra Hardware Timestamping Engine (HTE/GTE)
A kernel subsystem and provider driver for the Generic Timestamping Engine on NVIDIA Tegra194 (Xavier) and Tegra234 (Orin) SoCs. The hardware attaches precise timestamps to GPIO transitions and selected interrupts, useful on Jetson-class embedded boards for robotics, automotive, and industrial work that needs accurate signal correlation.
recommendation
It should stay because the subsystem is actively maintained, has received fixes into 2026, and supports current Jetson Xavier and Orin modules that NVIDIA still lists as available through 2028 and 2031. Deployment is niche rather than mass-market, but no other driver fills the same timestamping role on Tegra, so removal would leave Jetson users without a replacement.
repository signals
sources
- developer.nvidia.com
NVIDIA lists Jetson AGX Xavier 32GB and Xavier NX modules available through January 2028, and Jetson AGX Xavier Industrial through July 2031, so Tegra194-family hardware was still sold new in 2025.
- developer.nvidia.com
NVIDIA FAQ reiterates Xavier-family module availability through 2028/2031 and notes only Xavier developer kits are EOL, indicating ongoing production-module deployments rather than a fully retired platform.
- cateee.net
LKDDb shows CONFIG_HTE_TEGRA194 present from Linux 5.19 through 6.19 and 7.0-rc+HEAD, with DT compatibles for both tegra194 and tegra234, indicating ongoing upstream support.
- kernel.org
Current kernel documentation still carries the HTE subsystem and Tegra provider documentation, showing the interface remains maintained upstream.
- kernel.org
Kernel documentation describes drivers/hte/hte-tegra194.c as the NVIDIA Tegra HTE/GTE provider for GPIO and LIC IRQ timestamping, confirming the hardware scope and niche use case.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local inspection via shell (`sed`) showed `drivers/hte` is a real subsystem plus NVIDIA Tegra provider/test driver, not a helper-only directory; `hte-tegra194.c` contains Tegra194 and Tegra234 mappings. Lore MCP was unavailable in this session (`list_mcp_resources` unknown server) and `lei` was not installed, so upstream activity was checked via local `git -c safe.directory=... log -- drivers/hte`, which showed substantive fixes/tree updates through 2026-02-21 and no removal series; that backs `keep`, not deprecate/remove. URLs were obtained by web search for NVIDIA lifecycle/FAQ, LKDDb, and kernel docs. Deployment is `low` because this is a niche embedded timestamping block used on Jetson/Xavier/Orin-class SoCs rather than broad commodity systems. No natural replacement driver exists for the same HTE/GTE provider role.