Re: Chip in Linksys WPC11

Larry Finger <Larry.Finger@xxxxxxxxxxxx> hath wroth:

Our reverse-engineering process has done rather well. At present we are getting throughputs measured
with iperf that are up to 80% of what the Windows driver gets.

Cool. I have some Broadcom based cards in laptops that I want to try
on Linux.

That is the way Broadcom does things. My main laptop has a mini-PCIe card with a BCM4311 in it.
Included in the cores on the chip are the expected PCIe and 802.11 cores; however it also has a USB
1.1 host core. Why? Who knows?

Can I guess? Methinks it's to reduce the number of different chips
that have to be inventoried. The idea is to use the same chip for all
the manufacturers products (USB, PCI, PCMCIA, router, etc).

Methinks you can do the same for the WPC11.
<https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/cf/eas/reports/GenericSearch.cfm>

I found that the WPC11 V4 has a RTL8180 wireless chip, but there is no label on the wireless chip in
the WPC11 V3 photos. That may very well be a BCM4301.

For v4.0, it's a Maxim MAX2820.

WPC11 v2.9
<https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/forms/blobs/retrieve.cgi?attachment_id=281815&native_or_pdf=pdf>
Looks like Intersil Prism ISL37305P reference design. Photo shows
blurry a ISL387381A MAC chip.

WPC11 v3.0
<https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/forms/blobs/retrieve.cgi?attachment_id=224096&native_or_pdf=pdf>
Chips are unreadable.

WPC11 v3.1
<https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/forms/blobs/retrieve.cgi?attachment_id=259195&native_or_pdf=pdf>
Chips are unreadable.

WPC11 v4.0
<https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/oet/forms/blobs/retrieve.cgi?attachment_id=309492&native_or_pdf=pdf>
RTL8180L MAC chip. RF chip is Maxim MAX2820.

I may have missed some because I was yacking on the phone and radio at
the same time as I was trying to decode the chips.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
.

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