Runtime display switching in a Linux System (1xn)

Due to rapid graphical industrial evolution, display interface providers are coming up with display bridges to address the mismatch between application-specific display interfaces vs on-chip display controllers (like from SoC, MCU). This simplifies the on-chip solution provider to concentrate on a single display interface so that the application can choose a direct interface or any other interface by using a display bridge.

Display bridges are linear and one-to-one display interface convertors however the display interface provider makes the further complexity to these bridges and came up with a display switch that can take a single display interface input and convert more than one display interface output.

This kind of display switch has a variety of use cases in industrial and consumer graphic applications. A couple of display switch designs are available in the market via conventional mux with display bridges and a complete converter bridge chip with a one-to-two interface.

As the Linux DRM subsystem progresses toward DRM bridges, these display switches are well suited to be part of DRM bridges. Supporting display switches in Linux DRM is complex and new as DRM bridges are linear in architecture. In order to operate display switches via drm bridge, it requires a pipeline to non-linear and tree structure as switch operate more than one output.

Detailed information at: https://indico.freedesktop.org/event/2/contributions/76/