[RFC PATCH 1/1] USB: myriad-ma24xx-vsc: Firmware loader driver for USB Myriad ma24xx

[Alan Stern]

On Mon, 16 Sep 2019, Rhys Kidd wrote:

> The Myriad ma24xx in USB Intel Neural Compute Stick and Intel Neural
> Compute Stick 2 provides an API to accelerate AI inference calculations
> on the dedicated SHAVE VLIW vector co-processors, which are orchestrated
> by one or more LEON SPARC v8 real time cores.
> 
> However, they need firmware to be loaded beforehand. An uninitialised
> Myriad ma24xx presents with a distinctive USB ID. After firmware
> loading, the device detaches from the USB bus and reattaches with a new
> device ID. It can then be claimed by the usermode driver.

Is there any particular reason you need to have a kernel driver load 
the firmware?  Why can't a user program take care of it?  The 
usb_modeswitch program does that sort of thing all the time.

Alan Stern