HiSilicon Kunpeng server uncore and NIC performance monitoring units
Performance monitoring counters built into HiSilicon's Kunpeng-family Arm server chips (Hip08 and Hip09 generations, including the Kunpeng 920 used in Huawei TaiShan servers). The hardware blocks measured include L3 caches, memory controllers, the on-chip mesh, and the HNS3 networking engine, letting tools like perf profile cache, memory, and NIC behaviour on these systems.
recommendation
It should stay because the hardware is still sold new in 2025 — Huawei continues to ship Kunpeng 920-based TaiShan servers — and HiSilicon engineers are actively posting feature patches into 2025 and 2026, including new mesh-node PMU support. There is no generic replacement since these counters are vendor-specific to the SoC, so the directory is firmly in active maintenance.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
Lore shows active upstream feature work in 2026 on `drivers/perf/hisilicon/hisi_uncore_mn_pmu.c`, so the directory is not in maintenance-only limbo.
- lore.kernel.org
Lore shows a multi-version 2025 review series adding MN PMU support, indicating ongoing vendor and reviewer engagement rather than removal.
- kernel.org
Kernel documentation describes these as HiSilicon SoC uncore PMUs for L3C/HHA/DDRC-class blocks on multi-die HiSilicon server SoCs.
- docs.kernel.org
Kernel documentation describes HNS3 PMU as a HiSilicon SoC NIC PMU and explicitly mentions Hip09 deployment.
- hisilicon.com
HiSilicon's official product page shows Kunpeng 920 as a current server CPU family, supporting the case that matching PMU-equipped hardware remained marketable in 2025.
- support.huawei.com
Huawei's 2025-era TaiShan 200 server specifications list multiple Kunpeng 920 SKUs, evidence of new-system availability in the 2025 timeframe.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Not an early-exit case: this directory contains real PMU drivers (`Kconfig`, PCI/platform registration, 12 C files). Upstream activity was checked with `lore_activity` on `hisi_uncore_mn_pmu.c`; it returned 2025-2026 feature patches, including a 2026 update, which strongly argues against deprecation. An attempted `lore_regex` removal-search timed out, and local grep over git subjects found no remove/deprecate hits; I found no concrete removal discussion. Deployment evidence came from `web.search_query` results: kernel docs identify the blocks as HiSilicon server/NIC PMUs, and official HiSilicon/Huawei product pages show Kunpeng 920 systems still being sold/configured in the 2025 timeframe. There is no natural upstream replacement driver because these are vendor-specific perf PMUs.