The upcoming Linux 6.19 kernel cycle is now expected to introduce the new "ethosu" accelerator driver for supporting the Arm Ethos U65/U85 neural processing unit IP.

Going back over two years there has been [1]an Arm Ethos Linux driver in the works with an aim of getting into the mainline Linux kernel. Over this past summer [2]the Arm Ethos NPU accelerator driver work picked up and now in preparing to end out the year is the driver on a trajectory for getting into the mainline kernel.

Sent out today as part of this week's [3]drm-misc-next pull request to DRM-Next is merging that Arm "ethosu" accel driver. So barring any issues from coming up in the next few weeks, that code should then be submitted as part of the Linux 6.19 merge window in early December. Linux 6.19 stable in turn should be out around February.

For going along with this kernel accelerator driver, the Arm Ethos NPU support is also supported in user-space via [4]the recently-merged Gallium3D code for use with the Teflon framework .



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Arm-Ethos-U-Linux-Driver

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Arm-Ethos-NPU-Accel-Driver

[3] https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2025-October/533165.html

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Arm-Ethos-Gallium-Merged