AMD Linux Graphics Driver Plumbs Integration With New ISP Hardware Block

Written by Michael Larabel in Radeon on 9 May 2024 at 06:29 AM EDT. 9 Comments
RADEON
The AMDGPU Linux kernel graphics driver has seen a new patch series preparing enablement of a new hardware intellectual property (IP) block for the first time: the ISP.

Three patches posted on Wednesday introduce the ISP hardware block to this open-source AMD Radeon kernel graphics driver. ISP in this case presumably is for Image Signal Processing. In one of the patch messages this new AMDGPU ISP block is described as:
"Add the isp driver in amdgpu to support ISP device on the APUs that supports ISP IP block. ISP hw block is used for camera front-end, pre and post processing operations."

Thus it appears with upcoming AMD Ryzen laptops could be tighter integration between the AMD graphics and the web camera for more GPU-accelerated image processing.

AMDGPU ISP hardware block type


This is the first time the AMDGPU Linux driver is seeing any sort of ISP hardware support. The initial versions of the ISP hardware block are v4.1.0 and v4.1.1. Given the ISP hardware introduction with version "4" and the timing of these patches, it's quite possible this tighter web camera ISP integration with AMD graphics is coming for future AMD Ryzen laptops sporting RDNA4 graphics.

In any event the ISP patches are out there now for review. Given the timing they likely won't be merged until the Linux v6.11 cycle unless sneaking it in as part of fixes for the imminent v6.10 merge window. The patches themselves don't reveal any other notable details and, yes, this hardware block will require additional firmware blobs.
Related News
About The Author
Michael Larabel

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

Popular News This Week