Per the BCM2835 peripherals datasheet [1] page 10:
"The UART core is build to emulate 16550 behaviour ... The implemented
UART is not a 16650 compatible UART However as far as possible the
first 8 control and status registers are laid out like a 16550 UART. Al
16550 register bits which are not supported can be written but will be
ignored and read back as 0. All control bits for simple UART receive/
transmit operations are available."
Additionally, Linux uses the 8250/16550 driver for the aux UART [2].
Unfortunately the brcm,bcm2835-aux-uart device tree binding doesn't
have the reg-shift and reg-io-width properties [3]. Thus, the reg-shift
and reg-io-width properties are inherent properties of this UART.
Thanks to Andre Przywara for contributing the reg-shift and
reg-io-width setting snippet.
In my testing, I have relied on enable_uart=1 being set in config.txt,
a configuration file read by the Raspberry Pi's firmware. With
enable_uart=1, the firmware performs UART initialization.