[lm-sensors] PMBus support in Linux

[Wolfram Sang]

> Yes. PMBus uses i2c as transport, so it can use the existing i2c/smbus infrastructure. 
> Data reported is voltage, temperature, current, power, and fan data as available
> from the individual chip. Chips support a chip dependent number of channels.
> Values reported are typically in the form of X = Y * 2^N, ie there is a mantissa
> and an exponent.
> 
> So I would say it maps pretty well; I don't really see a substantial difference
> to other HW monitoring chips in that respect. Key difference may be that PMBus devices 
> typically also have a control component, but I don't have plans to implement that,
> at least not for now.

I just had a glimpse, but I came to a similar conclusion. As I further
understood, PMBus devices support a standard range of commands with the
possibility of manufacturer extenstions.

So, the approach I see (unless I miss something) would be writing an
hwmon-I2C-driver named pmbus-devices.c or so which covers the generic
functionality and provides some hooks for manufacturer extensions, if those are
necessary? (Altough I'd hope a number of devices would be covered by the
generic driver) Makes sense?

Kind regards,

   Wolfram

-- 
Pengutronix e.K.                           | Wolfram Sang                |
Industrial Linux Solutions                 | http://www.pengutronix.de/  |
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