Originally posted back in 2022 were Linux kernel patches for [1]Qualcomm USB audio offloading for Qualcomm SoCs with an audio DSP that can take responsibility for issuing transfers to the USB host controller to free up system resources. After going through 38 rounds of code review the past 2+ years, it looks like Linux 6.16 will finally mainline this Qualcomm USB audio offloading support.

Queued up on Friday via the USB subsystem's [2]usb-next branch were all of the v38 patches for the Qualcomm USB SND audio offloading support.

For Qualcomm chipsets where the USB audio can be offloaded to a dedicated audio DSP for handling the transfers to the USB host controller, this lessens the work of the main CPU cores and can help with power management so those CPU cores can hit lower power states if otherwise untaxed.

Nice seeing this work finally queued up into a "-next" branch and barring any issues from coming up it looks like this capability will be introduced for Linux 6.16 in the middle of the year.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Qualcomm-USB-Audio-Offloading

[2] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gregkh/usb.git/log/?h=usb-next