From Display Controller to Panel: A Modular Display Pipeline Architecture for Zephyr

Modern display hardware is increasingly modular, combining SoC display controllers, interfaces such as DPI and MIPI DSI, protocol-conversion bridges, and a variety of display panels. Zephyr's current display subsystem is largely vendor-specific, making it difficult to support diverse display pipelines in a scalable way.

This talk presents a modular display architecture for Zephyr inspired by Linux DRM framework. Display controllers, bridge devices, and panel drivers are implemented as independent layers connected through Devicetree. Pipelines are assembled dynamically at runtime, allowing display controllers to remain agnostic of downstream hardware.

The talk will show how a single display controller driver can support both MIPI DSI and DPI-through-HDMI by attaching different downstream components, and show how the driver is capable for even eDP and MIPI DBI interfaces.

Finally, the talk covers hot-plug detection and key design trade-offs while developing the driver for Zephyr.

• Learn how modern display pipelines are structured, including display controllers, protocol bridges, and display panels, and how these components interact.

• See how a modular, layered display architecture enables reusable drivers that are independent of downstream display hardware.

• Understand how Devicetree can describe complete display pipelines, allowing hardware configurations to be assembled without modifying controller drivers.