Integrate a new hardware into Android (1) -blog archive

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Integrate a new hardware into Android (1) -blog archive

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AlanZhang
Contributor V

When we talk about the integration of a new type of hardware module inside Android, that means we will cover the following aspects: HAL implementation for Linux driver manipulation, JNI implementation for HAL Java wrapper, Service Provider implementation for Android Framework invocation, and the functional test application code.

What I will depict are based on Jollen’s mokoid codebase.

HAL Implementation

The reasons of the existence of HAL:

1.  Not all hardware devices can provide standard Linux device driver interface;

2.  The standard Linux device driver must be comply with GPL that maybe conflict to some hardware vendors’proprietary;

3.  Android has some specific control on some particular hardware module.

 

HAL resident directories in Android codebase

Generally, HAL resides in the following subdirectories:

libhardware_legacy/ -- Legacy architecture for hardware integration

libhardware/            -- HAL stub

ril/                          -- Radio Interface Layer

mx5x/                     -- Freescale i.MX5x associates including Gps、Vibrator、Wifi、Copybit、Audio、Camera、Lights、Ril、Overlay etc.

 

First, I will focus on the legacy arch of HAL implementation because that would be more familiar to guys who have experiences on JNI invocation and implementation.

 

Hightlights on HAL implementation:

1. Being as a kernel driver's agent, i.e. associate with the open device node, issue IOCTL commands etc.

2. Utilize structure hw_module_t, structure hw_module_method_t, and structure hw_device_t (standard structures defined in Android) to encapsulate itself to be recognized by Android JNI layer.

 

Reference Relations among These 3 Structural Typed Instances

113-HAL.png
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