Qualcomm TSENS, SPMI PMIC, and LMh thermal monitors
On-chip temperature sensors and thermal limit-management hardware built into Qualcomm Snapdragon mobile SoCs and IPQ networking chips, including recent Wi-Fi 7 platforms like the IPQ5018, IPQ5332, and IPQ5424. They let the kernel read die temperatures, fire alarms via the SPMI power-management IC, and throttle CPU frequency when chips approach thermal limits.
recommendation
It should stay because the hardware is still shipping in brand-new Qualcomm networking and Dragonwing platforms in 2025, the driver received fresh patches and stable-tree backports as recently as June 2025, and there is no replacement driver for these blocks. Anyone running a Qualcomm-based phone, router, or embedded board needs this code to keep the device from overheating.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
The driver family was still receiving non-trivial upstream work in 2025, including a v6 patch for `thermal/drivers/qcom/tsens-v0_1` reviewed by subsystem maintainers.
- lore.kernel.org
A qcom tsens fix was accepted for stable backport in 2025, indicating ongoing maintenance and deployed users.
- docs.qualcomm.com
Qualcomm published a recent Dragonwing N6 platform brief listing IPQ5018, one of the SoCs supported by this driver's `qcom,ipq5018-tsens` compatible.
- docs.qualcomm.com
Qualcomm published a recent Dragonwing N7 platform brief listing IPQ5332, another SoC directly supported by this driver.
- docs.qualcomm.com
Qualcomm published a recent Networking Pro A7 platform brief listing IPQ5424, also directly supported by this driver.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local inspection via `rg`/`sed` shows this is active driver code for Qualcomm TSENS, SPMI thermal alarm/ADC TM5, and LMh blocks, with current OF matches including IPQ5018/IPQ5332/IPQ5424 plus older Snapdragon/MSM parts. `lore_activity` on `drivers/thermal/qcom/tsens.c` returned 2025 upstream and stable traffic (sources 1-2), while `lore_regex` found no removal/deprecation discussion and `lore_file_timeline` on the directory prefix returned no hits rather than removal evidence. Web search found recent Qualcomm product briefs for IPQ5018/IPQ5332/IPQ5424 (sources 3-5), so the hardware family is still present in new networking/embedded deployments. There is no natural upstream replacement driver for the same hardware blocks; recommendation stays `keep` rather than deprecate/remove.