These specs are based on older drivers using v3 firmware and coded in b43legacy. They are considered obsolete for all cards except B PHY only and early BCM4306 B/G cards. Please use the v4 specs instead: http://bcm-v4.sipsolutions.net/ If there is something here that isn't in the v4 specs, but should be, please let us know.

In light of the bcm43xx vs. bcw flamewar we, the reverse engineers, would like to point out that to the best of our knowledge the bcm43xx driver is clean. We would also like to note that we contacted Jon Simola at the end of December 2006 and offered to help clarify any questions on these specifications. Some people have now claimed that it was impossible to write a driver from just the specs and the bcm43xx source code was required, but we are sure this is not true, especially if you ask questions.

We would like to extend that offer to anyone else reading, feel free to contact us on IRC (see below).

The ReverseEngineeringProcess page describes how we created this specification, the rest of the site is simply that, the specification.

BCM43xx Specification

• Chipsets described by this document and devices known to use them

• BackPlane contains information on the Sonics Silicon Backplane used in the chips

• MemoryAccess describes various memory offsets and their usage

• PHY describes how to interact with the PHY

• Radio describes how to interact with the radio

• DeviceInitialization the procedure used to initialize the device

• DMA contains a description of how the DMA controllers work

• PIO contains a description of how the PIO controllers work

• Interrupts contains a description of interrupts on this chip.

• Security features supported in hardware

• Sending frames

• Afterburner feature

• DataRates supported

• PeriodicTasks

• Timing

• LEDs contains information on manipulating the LEDs

• LoopbackTest

• Definitions

This wiki

• A list of all FIXMEs

• A list of all pages in this wiki

• A snapshot (including all page history) is generated nightly at 3:20 UTC.

• You can subscribe to changes by logging in and subscribing to a page, or all pages at once via the regex subscription feature.

Other things

• The IRC channel #bcm-specs was available on sipsolutions.net, but I've shut it down. Old logs are available from http://bcm-specs.sipsolutions.net/irc-logs/?C=N;O=D.

• Implementation of this spec at http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43/

Related Links

• Low Power Advantage of 802.11a/g vs. 802.11b

• 802.11g - The Need for Speed

• 802.11a: A Very High-Speed, Highly Scalable Wireless LAN Standard

• IEEE 802.11b White Paper

• IEEE 802.11g Explained

• A Comparison of Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11

• Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b) and Bluetooth Coexistence Issues and Solutions for the 2.4 GHz ISM Band

• IEEE 802.11 Technical Tutorial

• US Patent Application #20030042984

• afterburner: http://www.hp.com/united-states/wireless/hsm_download.html