TI FlashMedia xx12/xx21 driver

OpenFacts, the Open Source Knowledge Database

Project page: http://developer.berlios.de/projects/tifmxx

Introduction

This project is devoted to the development of the acceptable and free source linux driver for TI FlashMedia family of devices. These devices are found in a vast majority of the modern laptops. Unfortunately, TI refused to publish a complete datasheet for any of the FlashMedia devices rendering them useless anywhere except M$ Windows (not unlike many other hardware vendors).

Windows drivers to the mentioned devices are available from nearly all major computer vendors both for Win32 and Win64 platforms. They support all the expected functionality: SM/xD cards, MMC, SD and SDIO, MemoryStick and MSpro including security/DRM features.

Progress

Version 0.6 of the driver is included with stock 2.6.19 release of the linux kernel. Version 0.8 is available in two subversions for 2.6.20 and 2.6.21 kernels and should be used as a replacement for the shipped (and quite unfortunately, buggy) one. It is merged into main kernel, as of version 2.6.22.

Get them here: http://developer.berlios.de/project/showfiles.php?group_id=5510.

Alternatively, you may consider looking at project's SVN: (alpha quality - http://svn.berlios.de/wsvn/tifmxx/trunk/driver/?rev=0&sc=0).

Driver is implemented using several modules:

tifm_core - serves as "bus" driver for the adapters and cards
tifm_7xx1 - "host" adapter for the pci device in question
tifm_sd - driver for MMC/SD cards (registers itself as mmc_host under kernel's mmc subsystem)

Currently in development:

tifm_ms - driver for MemoryStick cards (beta). This driver is not very useful without higher level MemoryStick protocol drivers. These are found in the same svn repository. Their current status:
- memstick - card identification driver (beta)
- ms_block - legacy MemoryStick storage support (alpha)
- mspro_block - MemoryStick Pro storage support (beta, has some problems)

Early stages of development:

tifm_xd - driver for xD/SmartMedia cards

Such complications are needed, because adapter's internal architecture appears to support all types of cards (SD, MS, XD) on every available socket (though external wiring is probably more limited).

A word of caution: as always with new (and especially reverse engineered) drivers, data loss, corruption and other nasty things may happen. Proceed with care.

Attribution

Special thanks to Carlos Corbacho for donation of Sony MemoryStick, MemoryStick Duo and MemoryStickPro Duo cards. The development of MemoryStick support is now underway.
Special thanks to Aaron Stone for donation of Olympus high density xD cards. The development of xD card support is pending.