I2C and SPI digital potentiometers from Analog Devices, Microchip, Maxim, TI, and Renesas
Digital potentiometers are small I2C- or SPI-controlled chips that act as software-adjustable variable resistors, used in embedded and industrial designs to calibrate analog circuits, trim gain, or tune sensor front-ends. About a dozen drivers cover parts like the ADI AD5272, Microchip MCP4131, and TI TPL0102, many still sold new in 2025.
recommendation
Worth keeping but documenting as a niche component because, while real-world deployments are modest, the underlying chips are still in active production at multiple vendors and the subsystem is still receiving real maintenance — including a 2025 treewide cleanup and a 2026 bug fix to the MCP4131 driver. There is no replacement framework that would make this code redundant, so it should remain available for the embedded and industrial users who need it.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
linux-iio carried a 2026 fix for mcp4131, showing the directory still receives non-removal maintenance.
- lore.kernel.org
linux-iio saw 2025 treewide cleanup touching the potentiometer drivers, consistent with an actively maintained subsystem rather than abandoned code.
- analog.com
ADI still markets the AD5272 digital potentiometer product family, indicating covered hardware remains on sale.
- ti.com
TI still lists TPL0102 as a current product, indicating this driver directory covers hardware still available for new designs.
- microchip.com
Microchip still lists MCP4131 as a current digital potentiometer product, supporting continued hardware availability.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local shell inspection of Kconfig and driver sources showed 12 real I2C/SPI digital-potentiometer drivers spanning ADI/Microchip/Maxim/TI/Renesas. lore_regex on patch bodies (linux-iio, since 5y) returned recent 2025-2026 touches including an mcp4131 bug fix and subsystem cleanups; that is active maintenance, so not a removal candidate. A separate lore_regex subject scan for removal/deprecation timed out rather than returning evidence, which lowers confidence slightly but does not indicate an actual removal effort. Vendor product-page URLs are canonical recall of stable official pages and show at least several covered chip families still sold in 2025. These parts are niche embedded/industrial components, so deployments today are low, but there is no single upstream replacement driver for the same use case; annotate as niche/long-tail rather than deprecate.