TI CAL camera capture interface for DRA72x, DRA76x, and AM654x SoCs
CAL (Camera Adaptation Layer) is the on-chip camera capture block in several Texas Instruments automotive and industrial SoCs, including the DRA72x and DRA76x Jacinto infotainment processors and the AM654x Sitara family. It receives video from MIPI CSI-2 image sensors for in-vehicle cameras, machine vision, and embedded imaging.
recommendation
It should stay because the driver is actively maintained, with feature work landing in March 2025 and a bug fix in October 2025. TI SoCs containing this camera capture block (such as AM6546 and DRA76P) are still listed as active and orderable in 2025, so new industrial and automotive boards using them continue to ship. There is no replacement driver and no upstream removal discussion.
repository signals
sources
- software-dl.ti.com
TI's Processor SDK documents CAL as the camera capture block/driver and lists supported device families including DRA72x, DRA76x and AM654x.
- cateee.net
LKDDb shows CONFIG_VIDEO_TI_CAL is still present in current kernel series and matches OF compatibles including ti,dra72-cal, ti,dra72-pre-es2-cal, ti,dra76-cal and ti,am654-cal.
- ti.com
TI lists AM6546 as ACTIVE and orderable, indicating at least one CAL-capable SoC family remained on sale in 2025.
- ti.com
TI lists DRA76P as ACTIVE, showing another CAL-capable family still had new-product availability.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local shell inspection (`rg`, `sed`) shows this is a real V4L2 platform driver with OF matches for `ti,dra72-cal`, `ti,dra72-pre-es2-cal`, `ti,dra76-cal`, and `ti,am654-cal`. Local `git log -c safe.directory=... -- drivers/media/platform/ti/cal` shows ongoing upstream maintenance, including functional work in 2025-03-26 (`Add streams support`) and a driver-specific fix in 2025-10-13, so this is not dormant. Web search obtained the TI SDK CAL page and LKDDb page to corroborate supported hardware and continued kernel presence; TI product pages for AM6546 and DRA76P were obtained via web search and show ACTIVE/orderable status, which supports `hardware_still_sold_new_in_2025=true`. A web query against lore for removal/deprecation discussion did not surface a CAL removal thread, so there is no evidence to escalate to deprecate/remove. Deployments are likely low rather than medium/high because this is niche embedded camera-capture IP on specific TI industrial/automotive SoCs, but it is still relevant and has no natural generic replacement driver.