Qualcomm FSM9900 and Centriq QDF2400 on-chip Ethernet MAC
The Gigabit Ethernet controller built into a small set of Qualcomm SoCs from the mid-2010s, notably the FSM9900 small-cell platform and the Centriq 2400 (QDF2400/QDF2432) ARM server chips. It handled the wired networking interface on those boards rather than being a discrete NIC.
recommendation
Worth keeping but flagging as legacy because the silicon it serves is essentially out of production: Qualcomm exited the Centriq server market in 2018 and the FSM9900 small-cell generation was superseded the same year, so present-day deployments are minimal. The code is not abandoned, however — it picked up a Qualcomm-specific cleanup patch in August 2024 and a treewide conversion patch in October 2024, so maintenance burden is low and removal is not warranted yet.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
The driver was still touched in netdev in October 2024 as part of a treewide platform_driver remove callback conversion, so it is not abandoned upstream.
- lore.kernel.org
The driver also received a Qualcomm-EMAC-specific cleanup patch in August 2024, indicating at least occasional direct maintenance.
- cateee.net
LKDDb shows CONFIG_QCOM_EMAC still present in current kernel series and maps it to ACPI IDs QCOM8070/QCOM8071 plus DT compatibles qcom,fsm9900-emac and qcom,qdf2432-emac-sgmii.
- android.googlesource.com
The binding document ties this driver to Qualcomm EMAC blocks used on FSM9900 and QDF2432 platforms, confirming the supported hardware family.
- qualcomm.com
Qualcomm publicly announced commercial shipment of the Centriq 2400 family in November 2017, placing one supported EMAC platform family in a short-lived 2017-era server product window.
- tomshardware.com
Third-party reporting in 2018 says Qualcomm effectively exited the Centriq server business, supporting the conclusion that QDF24xx-based new deployments are now legacy rather than growing.
- qualcomm.com
Qualcomm's 2018 small-cell press release centers newer FSM100xx parts, suggesting FSM9900-era small-cell silicon had already been superseded by then.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Driver status grounded first in lore_activity on emac.c, which showed 2023-2024 netdev traffic and no evidence of an active removal wave; attempted lore_regex removal scans timed out rather than finding removal hits. Hardware-family mapping came from local source inspection plus web-opened LKDDb and the qcom-emac binding page. Sales/deployment judgment is an inference from web search results: official Qualcomm pages place Centriq/FSM9900 in 2016-2018 product generations, Tom's Hardware reports the Centriq exit in 2018, and no current-era product evidence surfaced. Result: keep the driver, but annotate it as legacy/niche hardware with low present-day deployments rather than deprecating or removing it.