A-phy

[Larry Finger]

On 01/18/2012 09:05 AM, francesco.gringoli at ing.unibs.it wrote:
> Larry, Rafal,
>
> maybe this is not a new question on the list but I'm a little bit confused about a-phy support. I read on the http://bcm-v4.sipsolutions.net/802.11/Multiband page that a-phy should be supported on 14e4:4319 which is pointed out as being a BCM4318, and 14e4:4312 that is BCM4311 instead. On http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43 I also read that "The 802.11a part of the 4311 is not supported" and, in fact, I have a couple of devices which lspci displays as
>
> 03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11a/b/g (rev 01)
> 03:00.0 0280: 14e4:4312 (rev 01)
>
> and dmesg says:
> [  428.174190] b43-phy1: Broadcom 4311 WLAN found (core revision 10)
> [  428.216031] b43-phy1 debug: Found PHY: Analog 4, Type 2, Revision 8
> [  428.216055] b43-phy1 debug: Found Radio: Manuf 0x17F, Version 0x2050, Revision 2
>
> And, in fact, a-phy is not activated (it actually seems completely disabled from initialization code).
>
> So, is there any device I can buy for which b43 supports a-phy If the answer is yes (I really hope so :-) ) do you have some pointers on ebay?

No, I do not think that there are any devices that support operation in the 5 
GHz band for b43. At the time when I was working on b43 (before I started 
reverse engineering), I did not have access to a 5G router. By the time I got 
the router, I had sent that BCM4312 802.11a/b/g device to you.

I have never revisited the A PHY specs. I have, however, been including any 5G 
band information for any new routines for which I create new specs. Rafał can 
speak to the extent that he has implemented this part of the specs.

Larry