The MSM8953, commercially known as the Snapdragon 625, is one of the most iconic chipsets in mobile history. Renowned for its power efficiency and thermal stability, it remains a favorite for developers working on Linux mainline porting and ARM64 driver development.
If you are developing or porting a driver for this platform, the process generally follows these steps:
The most active development for open-source drivers happens through projects like msm8916-mainline which covers the related MSM8953 family. msm8953 for arm64 driver
However, as Android moves toward mandatory 64-bit only environments (ARM64-v8a) and custom ROM communities (LineageOS, Pixel Experience, etc.) continue to breathe new life into these devices, one question echoes through developer forums: What is the state of MSM8953 drivers for ARM64?
Before diving into drivers, we must understand the hardware’s ARM64 implementation. The MSM8953, commercially known as the Snapdragon 625
MSM8953 arm64 driver support in mainline is functional for low-speed peripherals and CPU/clocks/pinctrl, but feature-incomplete for mobile/audio/graphics. It’s a good experimental platform for arm64 kernel hacking, but not production-ready for a fully featured device. For that, stick to Qualcomm’s downstream kernel (Android common kernel 4.4/4.9/4.14) where arm64 drivers are complete, albeit closed-source and aging.
Table_title: Qualcomm Snapdragon 450/625/626/632 (MSM8953) Table_content: header: | Manufacturer | Qualcomm | row: | Manufacturer: postmarketOS Wiki However, as Android moves toward mandatory 64-bit only
| Feature | Downstream (4.4/4.9) | Mainline (6.x) | |--------|----------------------|----------------| | GPU | Full msm (kgsl) | Freedreno (works) | | Display | Full | Partial | | Audio | Full ALSA | Minimal | | Modem | Yes (rmnet, qmi) | No | | WiFi/BT | Yes (wcnss) | No / partial | | Camera | Yes | No | | PMIC | Full | Basic reg/hwmon | | Stability | High (but legacy) | Medium (basic I/O works) |