Mixed-signal industrial I/O: Analog Devices AD74115/AD74413R and Apex STX104
Mixed analog-and-digital I/O hardware used in industrial automation. The Analog Devices AD74115 and AD74413R are software-configurable chips whose pins can each act as analog input, analog output, digital input, or digital output for PLC and process-control gear, while the Apex STX104 is a PC/104 add-on board offering 16-bit analog I/O for legacy embedded systems.
recommendation
It should stay in the kernel because all three devices it supports are still in active use. Analog Devices lists the AD74115H and AD74413R software-configurable industrial I/O chips as recommended for new designs in 2025, Apex Embedded Systems still sells STX104-family PC/104 analog I/O boards, and the code itself received maintenance patches as recently as April-May 2025 with no deprecation discussion in sight.
repository signals
sources
- spinics.net
Recent upstream mailing-list traffic touched this directory in April 2025 for ad74115, indicating ongoing maintenance rather than abandonment.
- spinics.net
Recent upstream mailing-list traffic touched this directory in April 2025 for ad74413r, further showing active upkeep.
- analog.com
Analog Devices lists AD74115H as 'Recommended for New Designs' and offers samples/buy options, supporting that this hardware was still sold new in 2025.
- analog.com
Analog Devices lists AD74413R as 'Recommended for New Designs' with current product and evaluation-board information, supporting continued market availability.
- apexembeddedsystems.com
Apex Embedded Systems still advertises an STX104-family PC/104 module for sale, showing the legacy board niche remains commercially active.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local shell inspection of drivers/iio/addac/Kconfig and source files shows three real hardware drivers: AD74115, AD74413R, and STX104. Local git log (shell) shows substantive touches through 2025-05-21. Lore-specific tooling was unavailable here, so upstream activity was checked via web search hits on public mailing-list mirrors (spinics) for recent patch subjects; those 2025 patches show maintenance, and I found no removal/deprecation discussion in the retrieved results. Product availability was checked via vendor product pages found with web search: AD74115H and AD74413R are current ADI industrial parts, and Apex still markets STX104-family hardware. Overall this directory serves niche but still-deployed industrial/embedded I/O hardware, so removal/deprecation is not justified.