STMicroelectronics SoC PHY drivers (STM32MP USB/Combo PHY, STiH407, SPEAr MiPHY)
Low-level PHY (physical-layer) controllers built into STMicroelectronics system-on-chip designs, covering USB and combo PCIe/USB3/SATA interfaces on the current STM32MP1 and STM32MP25 industrial Linux microprocessors as well as older STiH407 set-top-box SoCs and SPEAr embedded chips from the 2010s.
recommendation
Worth keeping but worth labelling clearly, because the directory bundles two very different generations of hardware. The STM32MP1 USB PHY and STM32MP25 combo PHY drivers support chips ST is actively selling in 2025 for industrial, IoT, and medical boards, and they were still receiving upstream PHY-subsystem updates recently. The older STiH407 set-top-box and SPEAr MiPHY pieces are legacy and would benefit from a comment marking them as such, but there is no drop-in replacement so removing them would orphan working hardware.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
At least the STM32 PHY files in this directory were still being touched in upstream PHY work in 2026, so the directory is not dormant and there is no visible removal signal from recent lore activity checked here.
- st.com
STM32MP1 is an actively marketed Linux-capable ST MPU family for industrial, IoT, medical, smart-home, and infrastructure use cases, which matches the in-tree STM32 USBPHYC support.
- st.com
STM32MP25-based products were being marketed in 2025/2026 with Linux support and long-term availability, matching the in-tree STM32MP25 COMBOPHY driver use case.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Not a removal candidate. Local `rg`/Kconfig inspection shows this directory mixes legacy STiH407/SPEAr PHYs with current STM32MP1 USBPHYC and STM32MP25 COMBOPHY drivers, so a blanket deprecation would hit still-relevant silicon. `lore_file_timeline` on the directory path returned zero matches (directory-level blind spot), so I used `lore_activity` on `phy-stm32-combophy.c` and `phy-stm32-usbphyc.c`; both resolved to recent upstream PHY-series touches via the cited lore URL. Web search on `st.com` found current STM32MP1 and STM32MP25 product/partner pages showing new industrial Linux deployments. Recommendation is `keep-annotate`: keep the directory overall, but annotate that SPEAr/STi-era pieces are legacy while STM32 entries remain active. No natural replacement driver exists because these are SoC-specific PHY blocks.