zephyr clock_control driver

[hamzatamer]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to Zephyr RTOS and trying to follow the best practices for driver development. My goal is to write a driver for the Analog Devices HMC7044, which I'll be using as a clock generator and distributor in my embedded system, controlled via SPI.

My previous experience is with the Zephyr Sensor subsystem, and I understand its API. Since the HMC7044 is just an SPI device, I know I could technically write a driver for it using the sensor API by creating custom attributes. However, this feels semantically incorrect, as the HMC7044 is not a sensor; its primary role is to generate and control clock signals.

I've looked at the clock_control subsystem, which seems like the correct functional fit. However, many of the existing clock_control drivers appear to be for a microcontroller's internal clock tree (like for STM32, NXP, etc.), not for external ICs.

My question is: Is the clock_control subsystem the correct and intended place for a driver for an external, SPI-controlled clock generator IC like the HMC7044? Or is there another, more appropriate subsystem I should be using?

Any guidance or examples of similar drivers would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!