Re: [PATCH v4 0/6] Add support for the LTM8054 voltage regulator

[Jonathan Cameron <jic23@kernel.org>]

On Tue, 25 Nov 2025 08:37:20 -0800
Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net> wrote:

> On 11/25/25 02:25, H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
> ...
> > Another suggestion: what extending the "regulator-fixed", "regulator-gpio",
> > "regulator-fixed-clock" pattern by some "regulator-gpio-iio-dac-current-limiter"
> > driver to make it independent of your specific chip?
> >   
> The name is terrible ;-), but that is what I would have suggested as well.
> I don't see anything chip specific in this code. If there is a need for
> a regulator driver which uses gpio to enable it and a DAC for current limiting,
> it should be made generic.

Agreed - something generic is the ideal way to go.

However, before going too far it is worth exploring what are common circuits with
these things to identify what parameters we need to describe how the DAC channel
is used - e.g is linear scaling enough?  You'll need to that to define a DT
binding. If it turns out to be too complex, then fallback to specific
compatibles in a generic driver to cover the ones that don't fit with a common
scheme.  A similar case we already have is discrete components as analog front
ends for ADCs - mostly they fall into a few categories and we have drivers
covering those, but some are very odd indeed and for those ones we do have a
driver even though they don't have anything to control as such - most extreme
case being when it's a non linear analog sensor. 

The mention of a DAC as part of the analog feedback circuit sounds harder
too generalise but that's specific to this particular buck-boost device,
it's board specific so probably doesn't change the above.

> 
> > By the way, are you aware of this feature of the regulator-gpio driver?
> > 
> > https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v6.18-rc7/source/drivers/regulator/gpio-regulator.c#L97
> > 
> > Just to note: I am neither maintainer nor doing any decisions on this, just asking
> > questions for curiosity and from experience and giving hints for alternative approaches,
> > where I hope they help to find the really best solution.
> >   
> Same here.

Only covering the thing you are consuming so not my problem to maintain either ;)

Jonathan

> 
> Thanks,
> Guenter
>