Bosch CC770 and Intel 82527 CAN bus controllers
Kernel support for the Bosch CC770 and Intel AN82527 CAN bus controllers, early 1990s-vintage chips used on ISA cards and embedded platform boards to talk to Controller Area Network devices. They were common in industrial automation and automotive test equipment, and although Intel discontinued the 82527 long ago, pin-compatible replacements are still produced to keep older designs running.
recommendation
Worth keeping but flagging as legacy hardware. The underlying chips date to 1995 and Intel itself has acknowledged they are well past their natural end-of-life, yet the driver still saw routine CAN-subsystem maintenance in October 2025 and a third-party vendor (Innovasic) markets a drop-in replacement specifically so existing industrial boards can stay in service. That points to a small but real base of long-lived embedded deployments that benefit from the driver remaining in-tree.
repository signals
sources
- git.kernel.org
Upstream Kconfig identifies this directory as support for Bosch CC770 and Intel AN82527 CAN devices, including an ISA-bus legacy frontend and a generic platform-bus frontend.
- lore.kernel.org
The core cc770 driver file was still being touched in linux-can in October 2025 as part of active CAN treewide maintenance, not a removal series.
- digikey.com
DigiKey-hosted Innovasic IA82527 datasheet says it replaces the obsolete Intel 82527 and exists to let users retain existing board designs, indicating legacy sustainment rather than new design wins.
- community.intel.com
Intel support stated in June 2023 that the 82527 CAN controller was made in 1995 and, based on age, should have been EOL'd.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Real driver, not an early-exit case. Local tree inspection identified Bosch CC770 / Intel AN82527 support plus ISA legacy and platform-bus variants; kernel.org Kconfig URL cited via canonical recall. lore_file_timeline on drivers/net/can/cc770/cc770.c returned 2025 linux-can activity and no removal evidence in the returned recent events; cited lore URL obtained from the MCP tool. Deployment evidence came from web search results: DigiKey/Innovasic frames 82527 as an obsolete-part replacement for keeping old designs alive, and Intel's forum says the part dates to 1995 and should have been EOL'd. That points to legacy industrial/embedded deployments that still justify keeping the driver, but with an 'annotate legacy hardware' stance rather than deprecation or removal.