Chelsio Terminator T4, T5, and T6 Unified Wire Ethernet adapters
Chelsio's Terminator T4, T5, and T6 family of high-end 10/25/40/50/100 Gigabit Ethernet "Unified Wire" server adapters, which combine standard NIC functionality with offloads for TCP, iSCSI, RDMA, and FCoE. They are aimed at data centres, storage networks, and high-performance computing, and have been shipping since the early 2010s with new T6-generation parts still sold today.
recommendation
It should stay in the kernel because the hardware is still actively sold by Chelsio in 2025 (Terminator 6 Unified Wire adapters and ASICs remain on their product pages) and the code is still receiving upstream fixes, including a netdev patch as recently as November 2025. This is a current, maintained driver for hardware deployed in data-centre and high-performance networking roles.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
Upstream netdev traffic still carried cxgb4-specific fixes in late 2025, indicating active maintenance rather than retirement.
- chelsio.com
Chelsio still advertised Terminator 6 Unified Wire adapters, implying the cxgb4-supported family was still marketed in/through 2025.
- chelsio.com
Chelsio continued listing Terminator 6 ASICs alongside newer generations, supporting ongoing commercial relevance for T6-era hardware.
- cateee.net
LKDDb maps CONFIG_CHELSIO_T4/cxgb4 to Chelsio T4/T5/T6 Ethernet support, confirming the covered chipset family.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Real driver directory with module-backed Ethernet code. `lore_file_timeline` on `drivers/net/ethernet/chelsio/cxgb4/cxgb4_main.c` showed sustained activity through 2026-02-22 and a cxgb4-specific netdev fix on 2025-11-21; cited lore URL came from that MCP call. Chipset family was confirmed from in-tree Kconfig/headers via shell `rg`, and the cited LKDDb URL was obtained by web search. Chelsio product/ASIC pages were obtained by web search and show T6 adapters/ASICs still marketed, so this is not purely legacy hardware. Given active upstream fixes, stable backports, and ongoing vendor marketing, removal/deprecation is not indicated; keep the driver.