Re: [UPDATED v3][PATCH 1/7] regulator: consumer interface

From: David Brownell
Date: Thu Mar 13 2008 - 01:11:02 EST


On Wednesday 12 March 2008, ian wrote:
> >
> > To me, they aren't regulators at all.  :)
>
> I dunno.
>
> Regulate - to control.
>
> A switch certainly controls voltage.

You could stretch the terminology that way, yes.


> Admittedly the granularity is a
> little coarser than a nice digitally controlled regulator, but it fits
> the model...

Yet if you go into a parts catalog, you'll see that regulators
and switches (low side, high side, etc) are different parts.
Also, that many (most?) regulators aren't switchable.

Given my druthers, there'd be no repurposing of common terms
like "switch" and "regulator". That's all I'm getting at; in
normal usage, they are two different things. (And what we
care about is their output -- a power domain, possibly shared,
possibly somewhat controllable -- not how it works.)

- Dave

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