Re: [PATCH v2 0/9] accel: New driver for NXP's Neutron NPU

[Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu@tomeuvizoso.net>]

Hi Ioana,

Looks like the userspace portion of the driver is closed source
(libNeutronDriver.so)?

https://github.com/nxp-imx/tflite-neutron-delegate/blob/lf-6.12.49_2.2.0/CMakeLists.txt

Regards,

Tomeu

On Fri, Mar 6, 2026 at 2:27 PM Ioana Ciocoi-Radulescu
<ruxandra.radulescu@nxp.com> wrote:
>
> Introduce a new accel driver for the Neutron Neural Processing Unit
> (NPU), along with associated dt-bindings and DTS node.
>
> The first patch extends the GEM DMA helper APIs to allow bidirectional
> mapping of non-coherent DMA buffers. While not part of the Neutron
> driver, it's a prerequisite allowing us to use the GEM DMA helper.
>
> Neutron is a Neural Processing Unit from NXP, providing machine
> learning (ML) acceleration for edge AI applications. Neutron is
> integrated on NXP SoCs such as the i.MX95.
>
> The NPU consists of the following:
> - RISC-V core running a proprietary firmware
> - One or more Neutron cores, representing the main computation
>   engine performing ML operations
> - Dedicated fast memory (TCM)
> - DMA engine that handles data transfers between DDR and TCM
>
> The firmware is closed source and distributed as a binary here [1].
>
> The Neutron software stack also contains a userspace library [1] and
> a LiteRT custom delegate [2] that allow integration with standard
> LiteRT tools.
>
> [1] https://github.com/nxp-upstream/neutron/tree/upstream
> [2] https://github.com/nxp-imx/tflite-neutron-delegate
>
> Signed-off-by: Ioana Ciocoi-Radulescu <ruxandra.radulescu@nxp.com>
> ---
> Changes in v2:
> - rebase on newer drm-misc-next
> - dt bindings: clock fixes and renames
> - update DTS to match new names
> - remove unnecessary fields from neutron_job structure
> - fix use of uninitialized variable
>
> - Link to v1: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20260226-neutron-v1-0-46eccb3bb50a@nxp.com
>
> ---
> Ioana Ciocoi-Radulescu (9):
>       drm/gem-dma: Add flag for bidirectional mapping of non-coherent GEM DMA buffers
>       accel/neutron: Add documentation for NXP Neutron accelerator driver
>       dt-bindings: npu: Add NXP Neutron
>       accel/neutron: Add driver for NXP Neutron NPU
>       accel/neutron: Add GEM buffer object support
>       accel/neutron: Add mailbox support
>       accel/neutron: Add job submission IOCTL
>       accel/neutron: Add logging support
>       arm64: dts: imx95: Add Neutron node
>
>  Documentation/accel/index.rst                      |   1 +
>  Documentation/accel/neutron/index.rst              |  12 +
>  Documentation/accel/neutron/neutron.rst            | 131 ++++++++
>  .../devicetree/bindings/npu/nxp,imx95-neutron.yaml |  96 ++++++
>  MAINTAINERS                                        |  10 +
>  arch/arm64/boot/dts/freescale/imx95.dtsi           |  28 ++
>  drivers/accel/Kconfig                              |   1 +
>  drivers/accel/Makefile                             |   3 +-
>  drivers/accel/neutron/Kconfig                      |  16 +
>  drivers/accel/neutron/Makefile                     |  12 +
>  drivers/accel/neutron/neutron_debugfs.c            |  34 ++
>  drivers/accel/neutron/neutron_debugfs.h            |  15 +
>  drivers/accel/neutron/neutron_device.c             | 239 +++++++++++++
>  drivers/accel/neutron/neutron_device.h             | 155 +++++++++
>  drivers/accel/neutron/neutron_driver.c             | 262 +++++++++++++++
>  drivers/accel/neutron/neutron_driver.h             |  16 +
>  drivers/accel/neutron/neutron_gem.c                | 116 +++++++
>  drivers/accel/neutron/neutron_gem.h                |  14 +
>  drivers/accel/neutron/neutron_job.c                | 372 +++++++++++++++++++++
>  drivers/accel/neutron/neutron_job.h                |  43 +++
>  drivers/accel/neutron/neutron_mailbox.c            |  47 +++
>  drivers/accel/neutron/neutron_mailbox.h            |  42 +++
>  drivers/gpu/drm/drm_gem_dma_helper.c               |   6 +-
>  include/drm/drm_gem_dma_helper.h                   |   3 +
>  include/uapi/drm/neutron_accel.h                   | 130 +++++++
>  25 files changed, 1801 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
> ---
> base-commit: 6716101ae42949e98ad4b9e71eeba08c055be410
> change-id: 20260226-neutron-c435e39d167f
>
> Best regards,
> --
> Ioana Ciocoi-Radulescu <ruxandra.radulescu@nxp.com>
>