On Saturday 01 May 2010 20:23:26 David H. Lynch Jr. wrote: > On 05/01/2010 01:19 PM, Christian Lamparter wrote: > > > > Well, for starters the ar9170 uses a ZyDas MAC (aka ZD1221) > > and a AR900x PHY/Radio. Therefore the phy code and registers > > are very similar to those #definitions you can find in ath9k. > > And for the MAC code& registers you can look into zd1211rw, > > or look into drivers/staging/otus (original vendor driver, > > shares some code with their windows drivers) > > > > AFAICT, there are no technical documents about the AR9170 > > solution available w/o signing a NDA with Atheros > > (probably because the devices are still produced and sold in high quantities?). > > > Thanks; > > I did just discover a reasonably good 150p spec. In what I received from > my client. If I can I will share it. I am under an NDA, but the client also > told me that they received no cooperation from atheros. hmm, only 150 pages? That's sounds a bit thin, as a matter of fact I know that the ath5k docs (rf+mac+eeprom) are at least around 300-400 pages. Well, we'll see. But just in case, we already have a small library of hardware docs (but most from different vendors): http://wireless.kernel.org/en/developers/Documentation/specs and we would welcome such an addition ;-) > >> What is available for the ar9170 itself ? > >> How does the firmware and the linux driver communicate? > >> Is there an overview of the firmware - what is where ? > >> > > not really, apart from the headers of the original firmware > > and vendor drivers. > > > > But if you really need to implement some of your 'features' > > (what are they, if I may ask?) > > I think I can tell you what I am supposed add - I need to be able > to provide userspace apps with precise timing information for each packet. > Since i am working on GPL'd code and the results are going to be > provided to third parties whatever I do is GPL'd too. if by precise timing you mean "exact mac time in TU/usecs when frame was received at the radio", then you might have a _problem_. You see, the firmware already receives fully packed frames from the MAC processor and only _forwards_ them all [as is] in one big DMA to the USB subsystem. (this is done in src/wlan.c handle_rx()) So, unless the HW has a _magic_ flag to enable this capability... you are sort of screwed :-/. > Why gets into the NDA. > Right now i have an NDA with a new client and though I am > exercising care. But they seem fairly mellow. I am probably just being > overly cautious. k, understood. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-wireless" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
