Audio drivers for Cirrus Logic CS35L54/56/57 Boosted Smart Amplifiers

Copyright:

2025 Cirrus Logic, Inc. and Cirrus Logic International Semiconductor Ltd.

Contact: patches@opensource.cirrus.com

Summary

The high-level summary of this document is:

If you have a laptop that uses CS35L54/56/57 amplifiers but audio is not working, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE FIRMWARE AND SETTINGS FROM ANOTHER LAPTOP, EVEN IF THAT LAPTOP SEEMS SIMILAR.

The CS35L54/56/57 amplifiers must be correctly configured for the power supply voltage, speaker impedance, maximum speaker voltage/current, and other external hardware connections.

The amplifiers feature advanced boost technology that increases the voltage used to drive the speakers, while proprietary speaker protection algorithms allow these boosted amplifiers to push the limits of the speakers without causing damage. These must be configured correctly.

Supported Cirrus Logic amplifiers

The cs35l56 drivers support:

  • CS35L54

  • CS35L56

  • CS35L57

There are two drivers in the kernel

For systems using SoundWire: sound/soc/codecs/cs35l56.c and associated files

For systems using HDA: sound/pci/hda/cs35l56_hda.c

Firmware

The amplifier is controlled and managed by firmware running on the internal DSP. Firmware files are essential to enable the full capabilities of the amplifier.

Firmware is distributed in the linux-firmware repository: https://gitlab.com/kernel-firmware/linux-firmware.git

On most SoundWire systems the amplifier has a default minimum capability to produce audio. However this will be

  • at low volume, to protect the speakers, since the speaker specifications and power supply voltages are unknown.

  • a mono mix of left and right channels.

On some SoundWire systems that have both CS42L43 and CS35L56/57 the CS35L56/57 receive their audio from the CS42L43 instead of directly from the host SoundWire interface. These systems can be identified by the CS42L43 showing in dmesg as a SoundWire device, but the CS35L56/57 as SPI. On these systems the firmware is mandatory to enable receiving the audio from the CS42L43.

On HDA systems the firmware is mandatory to enable HDA bridge mode. There will not be any audio from the amplifiers without firmware.

Cirrus Logic firmware files

Each amplifier requires two firmware files. One file has a .wmfw suffix, the other has a .bin suffix.

The firmware is customized by the OEM to match the hardware of each laptop, and the firmware is specific to that laptop. Because of this, there are many firmware files in linux-firmware for these amplifiers. Firmware files are not interchangeable between laptops.

Cirrus Logic submits files for known laptops to the upstream linux-firmware repository. Providing Cirrus Logic is aware of a particular laptop and has permission from the manufacturer to publish the firmware, it will be pushed to linux-firmware. You may need to upgrade to a newer release of linux-firmware to obtain the firmware for your laptop.

Important: the Makefile for linux-firmware creates symlinks that are listed in the WHENCE file. These symlinks are required for the CS35L56 driver to be able to load the firmware.

How do I know which firmware file I should have?

All firmware file names are qualified with a unique “system ID”. On normal x86 PCs with PCI audio this is the Vendor Subsystem ID (SSID) of the host PCI audio interface.

The SSID can be viewed using the lspci tool:

lspci -v -nn | grep -A2 -i audio
0000:00:1f.3 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation Meteor Lake-P HD Audio Controller [8086:7e28]
Subsystem: Dell Meteor Lake-P HD Audio Controller [1028:0c63]

In this example the SSID is 10280c63.

The format of the firmware file names is:

cs35lxx-b0-dsp1-misc-SSID[-spkidX]-ampN

Where:

  • cs35lxx-b0 is the amplifier model and silicon revision. This information is logged by the driver during initialization.

  • SSID is the 8-digit hexadecimal SSID value.

  • ampN is the amplifier number (for example amp1). This is the same as the prefix on the ALSA control names except that it is always lower-case in the file name.

  • spkidX is an optional part, used for laptops that have firmware configurations for different makes and models of internal speakers.

Sound Open Firmware and ALSA topology files

All SoundWire systems will require a Sound Open Firmware (SOF) for the host CPU audio DSP, together with an ALSA topology file (.tplg).

The SOF firmware will usually be provided by the manufacturer of the host CPU (i.e. Intel or AMD). The .tplg file is normally part of the SOF firmware release.

SOF binary builds are available from: https://github.com/thesofproject/sof-bin/releases

The main SOF source is here: https://github.com/thesofproject

ALSA-ucm configurations

Typically an appropriate ALSA-ucm configuration file is needed for use-case managers and audio servers such as PipeWire.

Configuration files are available from the alsa-ucm-conf repository: https://git.alsa-project.org/?p=alsa-ucm-conf.git

Kernel log messages

SoundWire

A successful initialization will look like this (this will be repeated for each amplifier):

[ 7.568374] cs35l56 sdw:0:0:01fa:3556:01:0: supply VDD_P not found, using dummy regulator
[ 7.605208] cs35l56 sdw:0:0:01fa:3556:01:0: supply VDD_IO not found, using dummy regulator
[ 7.605313] cs35l56 sdw:0:0:01fa:3556:01:0: supply VDD_A not found, using dummy regulator
[ 7.939279] cs35l56 sdw:0:0:01fa:3556:01:0: Cirrus Logic CS35L56 Rev B0 OTP3 fw:3.4.4 (patched=0)
[ 7.947844] cs35l56 sdw:0:0:01fa:3556:01:0: Slave 4 state check1: UNATTACHED, status was 1
[ 8.740280] cs35l56 sdw:0:0:01fa:3556:01:0: supply VDD_B not found, using dummy regulator
[ 8.740552] cs35l56 sdw:0:0:01fa:3556:01:0: supply VDD_AMP not found, using dummy regulator
[ 9.242164] cs35l56 sdw:0:0:01fa:3556:01:0: DSP1: cirrus/cs35l56-b0-dsp1-misc-xxxxxxxx.wmfw: format 3 timestamp 0x66b2b872
[ 9.242173] cs35l56 sdw:0:0:01fa:3556:01:0: DSP1: cirrus/cs35l56-b0-dsp1-misc-xxxxxxxx.wmfw: Tue 05 Dec 2023 21:37:21 GMT Standard Time
[ 9.991709] cs35l56 sdw:0:0:01fa:3556:01:0: DSP1: Firmware: 1a00d6 vendor: 0x2 v3.11.23, 41 algorithms
[10.039098] cs35l56 sdw:0:0:01fa:3556:01:0: DSP1: cirrus/cs35l56-b0-dsp1-misc-xxxxxxxx-amp1.bin: v3.11.23
[10.879235] cs35l56 sdw:0:0:01fa:3556:01:0: Slave 4 state check1: UNATTACHED, status was 1
[11.401536] cs35l56 sdw:0:0:01fa:3556:01:0: Calibration applied

HDA

A successful initialization will look like this (this will be repeated for each amplifier):

[ 6.306475] cs35l56-hda i2c-CSC3556:00-cs35l56-hda.0: Cirrus Logic CS35L56 Rev B0 OTP3 fw:3.4.4 (patched=0)
[ 6.613892] cs35l56-hda i2c-CSC3556:00-cs35l56-hda.0: DSP system name: 'xxxxxxxx', amp name: 'AMP1'
[ 8.266660] snd_hda_codec_cs8409 ehdaudio0D0: bound i2c-CSC3556:00-cs35l56-hda.0 (ops cs35l56_hda_comp_ops [snd_hda_scodec_cs35l56])
[ 8.287525] cs35l56-hda i2c-CSC3556:00-cs35l56-hda.0: DSP1: cirrus/cs35l56-b0-dsp1-misc-xxxxxxxx.wmfw: format 3 timestamp 0x66b2b872
[ 8.287528] cs35l56-hda i2c-CSC3556:00-cs35l56-hda.0: DSP1: cirrus/cs35l56-b0-dsp1-misc-xxxxxxxx.wmfw: Tue 05 Dec 2023 21:37:21 GMT Standard Time
[ 9.984335] cs35l56-hda i2c-CSC3556:00-cs35l56-hda.0: DSP1: Firmware: 1a00d6 vendor: 0x2 v3.11.23, 41 algorithms
[10.085797] cs35l56-hda i2c-CSC3556:00-cs35l56-hda.0: DSP1: cirrus/cs35l56-b0-dsp1-misc-xxxxxxxx-amp1.bin: v3.11.23
[10.655237] cs35l56-hda i2c-CSC3556:00-cs35l56-hda.0: Calibration applied

Important messages

Cirrus Logic CS35L56 Rev B0 OTP3 fw:3.4.4 (patched=0)

Shows that the driver has been able to read device ID registers from the amplifier.

  • The actual amplifier type and silicon revision (CS35L56 B0 in this example) is shown, as read from the amplifier identification registers.

  • (patched=0) is normal, and indicates that the amplifier has been hard reset and is running default ROM firmware.

  • (patched=1) means that something has previously downloaded firmware to the amplifier and the driver does not have control of the RESET signal to be able to replace this preloaded firmware. This is normal for systems where the BIOS downloads firmware to the amplifiers before OS boot. This status can also be seen if the cs35l56 kernel module is unloaded and reloaded on a system where the driver does not have control of RESET. SoundWire systems typically do not give the driver control of RESET and only a BIOS (re)boot can reset the amplifiers.

DSP1: cirrus/cs35l56-b0-dsp1-misc-xxxxxxxx.wmfw

Shows that a .wmfw firmware file was found and downloaded.

DSP1: cirrus/cs35l56-b0-dsp1-misc-xxxxxxxx-amp1.bin

Shows that a .bin firmware file was found and downloaded.

Calibration applied

Factory calibration data in EFI was written to the amplifier.

Error messages

This section explains some of the error messages that the driver can log.

Algorithm coefficient version %d.%d.%d but expected %d.%d.%d

The version of the .bin file content does not match the loaded firmware. Caused by mismatched .wmfw and .bin file, or .bin file was found but .wmfw was not.

No %s for algorithm %x

The version of the .bin file content does not match the loaded firmware. Caused by mismatched .wmfw and .bin file, or .bin file was found but .wmfw was not.

.bin file required but not found

HDA driver did not find a .bin file that matches this hardware.

Calibration disabled due to missing firmware controls

Driver was not able to write EFI calibration data to firmware registers. This typically means that either:

  • The driver did not find a suitable wmfw for this hardware, or

  • The amplifier has already been patched with firmware by something previously, and the driver does not have control of a hard RESET line to be able to reset the amplifier and download the firmware files it found. This situation is indicated by the device identification string in the kernel log shows “(patched=1)”

Failed to write calibration

Same meaning and cause as “Calibration disabled due to missing firmware controls”

Failed to read calibration data from EFI

Factory calibration data in EFI is missing, empty or corrupt. This is most likely to be cause by accidentally deleting the file from the EFI filesystem.

No calibration for silicon ID

The factory calibration data in EFI does not match this hardware. The most likely cause is that an amplifier has been replaced on the motherboard without going through manufacturer calibration process to generate calibration data for the new amplifier.

Did not find any buses for CSCxxxx

Only on HDA systems. The HDA codec driver found an ACPI entry for Cirrus Logic companion amps, but could not enumerate the ACPI entries for the I2C/SPI buses. The most likely cause of this is that:

  • The relevant bus driver (I2C or SPI) is not part of the kernel.

  • The HDA codec driver was built-in to the kernel but the I2C/SPI bus driver is a module and so the HDA codec driver cannot call the bus driver functions.

init_completion timed out

The SoundWire bus controller (host end) did not enumerate the amplifier. In other words, the ACPI says there is an amplifier but for some reason it was not detected on the bus.

No AF01 node

Indicates an error in ACPI. A SoundWire system should have a Device() node named “AF01” but it was not found.

Failed to get spk-id-gpios

ACPI says that the driver should request a GPIO but the driver was not able to get that GPIO. The most likely cause is that the kernel does not include the correct GPIO or PINCTRL driver for this system.

Failed to read spk-id

ACPI says that the driver should request a GPIO but the driver was not able to read that GPIO.

Unexpected spk-id element count

AF01 contains more speaker ID GPIO entries than the driver supports

Overtemp error

Amplifier overheat protection was triggered and the amplifier shut down to protect itself.

Amp short error

Amplifier detected a short-circuit on the speaker output pins and shut down for protection. This would normally indicate a damaged speaker.

Hibernate wake failed

The driver tried to wake the amplifier from its power-saving state but did not see the expected responses from the amplifier. This can be caused by using firmware that does not match the hardware.