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OMAP-L138 + WL1271 is it possible?

Other Parts Discussed in Thread: OMAP-L138, WL1271, OMAP-L137, AM1808, OMAPL138, AM1810

Hi,

I am new to OMAP developement and our company has just recently chosen OMAP-L138 as our base platform for future product development.

One of the first products we are going to use OMAP-L138 will require wireless connectivity which we found out that the WL1271 can provide (Wifi + bluetooth).

However, base on the post I've read from the forum I only found support for the WL1271 on the OMAP35xx.

Can you please clarify if the OMAP-L138 can be interfaced with the WL1271?

Also are their available any Linux device drivers for the WL1271 which can be installed in the Linux package for the OMAP-L138.

 

Please advice.

  • Grant said:
    Can you please clarify if the OMAP-L138 can be interfaced with the WL1271?

    This is physically possible, that is the OMAP-L138 has the sufficient interfaces (primarily SDIO) to manage the connection. However there is not currently any hardware design in place to interface the OMAP-L138 to the WL1271 that I am aware of (or any immediate plans for one). 

    Grant said:
    Also are their available any Linux device drivers for the WL1271 which can be installed in the Linux package for the OMAP-L138.

    The drivers for the WL1271 on the OMAP3 are open source, so there is a possibility of porting them into the OMAP-L137 kernel, however this is likely going to be a significant task as it will most likely take more than just rebuilding the drivers for the OMAP-L138 kernel, if it is even possible with the given documentation. If you wanted to pursue this further today, you would probably want to work with a third party as suggested here on the wiki.

    The WL1271 is going to be an optimal solution, particularly if you need BT and WiFi in a low power, compact application, though if the cost of the porting effort to OMAP-L138 is determined to be too high you may consider an off the shelf USB solution, as this is what we would have traditionally recommended before the availability of the WL1271 module.

  • Hello,

    I would like to mention that TI is working on defining a way to deploy a similar platform for connecting the WL1271 to the OMAP-L1. We don't have a schedule yet because we're in the definition stage, but our goal would be for 2nd half of this year.

    In the mean time, as Bernie commented, a third party can offer a solution and given the advantages of WL1271 over off the shelf USB solutions (e.g. support for both WLAN and Bluetooth; support for 802.11n; low power), it is worth considering.

  • Hi,

     

    Has there been any update on the development of the WL1271 + OMAP-L1?

    We would appreciate any code dump even if it is still under development

  • Hello,

    Unfortunately, we've had some delays and don't have an update on the WL1271+OMAP-L1 development yet.  We'll provide an update later in 3Q this year.

     

  • Hi all,

    I'm trying to test my wl1271 wlan module on SDIO. For that I'm using latest wl1271 driver from wireless-2.6 tree (using compat-wireless). At the moment I'm looking for NVS file for my device: the driver needs two files, on is the firmware called wl1271-fw.bin, the other one is the nvs file called wl1271-nvs.bin.

    I wrote directly to driver's developer and he suggested me to ask for a procedure to extract nvs file from my device, does anyone know how it could be done?

    Thank you for your help,

    pz

  •  

    The following link describes how to create NVS file  using wlan_cu (CLI application)

    http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/OMAP35x_Wireless_Connectivity_Getting_Started_Guide#Performing_WLAN_RF_Calibration

    Thanks,

    Sinoj

     

     

  • Hello,

    do you have any update on the WL1271+OMAP-L1porting?

     

    Thanks!

  • I would like an update as well.

  • Are there any new updates for the status of TiWi support ?

    Just trying to keep this question active.

  • Hi,

    we will have AM1808 release which is based on TI proprietary Driver (M6 release) at end of Q1 2011.

    in addition we will have a release for AM1808 and for OMAPl138 which is based on the mac802.11 at Q2 2011

    Regards,

    Eyal

     

  • Hi Eyal,

     

    Thank you for this update. I am also wondering given that AM1808 and OMAP-L138 are not so different in terms of ARM core why does it take so long for the OMAP-L138 version to be released?

    Is it related to the testing schedule? If it is, would it be possible to get a development release version so we can start working on it?

     

  • Hi Grant,

    we are going to support the OMAP-L138 with mac802.11 only and not with the M6 legacy driver.

    however you are right that in that sense OMAP-L138 is no different from AM18x and there should be no different in the SW, however according to Marketing plans we have no plans to test the OMAP-L138 with the M6 legacy driver. please note that the AM18x platform with Legacy driver will be available on Q1 2011.

     

    Regards,

    Eyal

  • Eyal,

     

    Any updates when the TiWi driver (AM1808) will be released?

    Based on your previous reply that it should be coming very very soon.

    Please keep us posted.

  • Hi,

    AM1808 Legacy driver is alreay ready, please find it in the following links:

    http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/ARM_Processor_Wireless_Connectivity_Downloads

    http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/AM18x_Wireless_Connectivity_Demo

    http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/AM18x_Wireless_Connectivity_EVM_bringup

    The OMAPL130 will be also available in couple of weeks, please keep updated in the Download page.

    as for the AM1808 mac802.11 open source release, it should be public on begining of Q2 2011

    Regards,

    Eyal

  • Sorry if this has already been answered, or will be covered in the open source release:  is the for DaVinci PSP 03.20.00.14?  If not, will the WL1271 driver be a part of DaVinci PSP 03.20.00.15?

  • Hi Inderjit Bains

    only the ti-WL1271 driver is supported in 03.20.00.14.

    The WL12XX mac80211 driver ( open source driver)  won't be a part of the latest PSP that supposed to be released soon 03.21.00.03.

    However this driver is going to be supported through the ti-SDK for AM-18 which suppose to be release by the beginning of Q2-2011.

    PSP-03.21.00.03 is based on Linux kernel 2.6.37 and for that reason contains some very basic support in WL12XX MAC80211 driver.

    Since 2.6.37 Linux kernel version the WL12XX driver had a major progress, so these changes will available through ti-SDK when it will be released (using compat).

    Nisim 

  • Can you clarify the following:

    1.  What are the difference between the ti-WL1271 driver vs. the WL12XX mac80211 driver?

    2.  What are the differences between PSP-03.21.00.03 and the ti-SDK for AM-18 (I've only used the PSP-xx).


    We are already at the beginning of Q2-2011.

  • 1. The ti-WL1271 driver is a proprietary ti driver which were in use till today for TI-127X wireless chip. The  WL12xx-mac80211 driver is totally new driver. It is an open source driver which is actually embedded in the linux kernel since Linux 2.6.37.

    2. PSP contains only the drivers for the board while ti-SDK is a software development kit which supply a platform to develop applications for the AM18. Except being a developers platform the SDK contains some tools, drivers which are not include in the PSP, for example GUI. 

    Regarding the release date -- The SDK is planned to be release at the beginning of H2-2011 (Q3-2011) - sorry for my previous mistake.  

    Nisim,

  • The WL1271 module should be capable of being an End Point as well as an Access Point for WiFi.  Which driver/PSP/SDK is best suited for an embedded board without a display (no GUI required)?

  • Host AP (Access point) will be supported only in the MAC80211 driver.

  • It's not very clear what's being stated in the 04-12-2011 8:20 AM post.  One line says that the MAC80211 driver won't be part of PSP 03.21.00.03 (which seems to have been released already).  Another line says that since PSP 03.21.00.03 is based on Linux Kernel 2.6.37, it has basic support for the MAC80211 driver.  Is there a Wiki page that explains all the different development paths and what is supported?

     

  • Hi,

    I don't know about any wiki that explain this, but let me try and make things more clear.

    The MAC80211 driver is an open embedded driver which is part of the kernel Linux version -- that means that linux kernel includes TI WLAN driver inside its driver's list.

    The following link can give a better info about the "MAC80211 world": http://linuxwireless.org/en/developers/Documentation/mac80211

    Since linux version 2.6.37 was the first version to have the TI-driver MAC80211 it includes quite an immature driver comparing to the development done by now for this driver. Most of the development that was done since 2.6.37 release and now is aimed for 2.6.39 version. Since the PSP 03.21.00.03 root base is linux kernel 2.6.37 it includes only the initial driver we had back then.

    In the SDK release that I mentioned before we intend to build the latest MAC80211 ti-driver ( with all recent driver development ). We will build the latest driver and apply it on PSP 03.21.00.03 using Compat. That way you will have the latest driver development working on PSP 03.21.00.03.

    Hope this make things more clear for you.

    Nisim,

     

  • Thank you very much for the clarifications.  But of course there are more questions:

    1.  Where does Bluetooth fit in with the MAC80211 open-source driver?  One of the reasons the WL1271 was chosen was for WiFi & Bluetooth, with co-existence built-in.

    2.  If BT is not supported by the MAC80211, what are TI's plans for the BT section of the WL1271, and which interfaces will be supported?  UART is a must, but what about the AUDIO (McBSP) port?

  • Hi Inderjit Bains,

    Mac802.11 is open source for WLAN support only, however in our platforms we are going to add BlueZ and Open OBEX to support the open source Bluetooth support.

     

    The interface for WLAN is SDIO (MMC2 usually) and for Bluetooth is UART, however as you mentioned the in some platforms like the OMAPL138 the Bluetooth will not be supported since it share same hardware for the Audio

    Regards,

    Eyal

  • For Bluetooth, the WL1271 has two interfaces:  UART and PCM Audio.  PCM Audio is usually connected to a McBSP port on the CPU.  The question:  which ports on the CPU will be supported by the Bluetooth driver?  UART, McBSP, or both?

  • Hi,

    currently we don’t have schedule to support PCM Audio over Bluetooth, only profiles like A2DP, OPP, FTP, HID, SPP which used the UART only.

    Could you please elaborate more on the PCM Audio scenario opportunity? Would you like to have someone from the Marketing to discuss that with him?

    Regards,

    Eyal

     

  • If the current plan is to not support PCM Audio, this should have been made clear early in the thread.  If A2DP will cover most audio requirements, there isn't any point in connecting the PCM interface to the AM1808.  It would have been useful information before the hardware design was done.

  • How are things progressing with the software release date?  The start of Q3 is just two weeks away.

  • Hi,

    According to the marketing the dates of releases are published in the following link:

    http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/OMAP35xx_Wireless_Connectivity

    Currently I don’t know of any change in plans, but I will try to check the accurate dates.

    If you wish to take the current driver (NOT-open source) you can get it from the following link:

    http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/ARM_Processor_Wireless_Connectivity_Downloads

    For AM-18 à SW-0007

    For AM-omapl138 à SW-0008

  • Let's make this simple.  Will the open source driver ever be part of a PSP_03.20.00.xx release?  If yes, when will a stable version be ready?  The following page seems to indicate that the AM18x SDK 5.03 Beta (set to be released on Sept. 30th, 2011, not sure how this is related to the PSP_03.20.00.xx releases) will be based on Kernel 2.6.38, not 2.6.39 as stated in your response on April 13, 2011.

  • Also, what is the difference between open-source (PSP_03.20.00.xx) and non-open source (05.20.00.xx?)?  Are there license fees for the non-open source code?

  • Hi Inderjit,

    We have Open source driver for 1271 chip set on PS 03.21.00.04 on AM18x platform as part of SDK 5.02. in addition SDK5.03 is currently planned to be at the end of September and it will also include open source drivers for 1271 chipset, and as far as I know it will be with 2.6.38, although it may change. In addition in SDK5.03 we will have more advance WLAN driver with some bug fixes and more features.

    As for PSP_03.20.00.xx, we do have also WLAN driver for 1271 chip on AM18x platform, however it is TI proprietary driver, and not open source driver, both driver drivers are license free however the Open source driver is currently our mainline, we will continue supporting it moving forward with bug fixes and new feature as well it will be supported by Community. As for the proprietary driver, it will be supported however not with new features, so my advice is to go with the open source driver.

    Regards,

    Eyal

  • More questions:

    1.  Is there any point in working with SDK5.02?  What are the new features in WLAN driver in 5.03?  Will it include host mode?

    2.  Is PSP_03.21.00.04 the successor to PSP_03.20.00.xx or a new branch?

  • Hi Inderjit,

    the main new feature in SDK5.03 is wifi direct, in addition PSP_03.21.00.04 is a new branch from PSP_03.20.00.xx

    Regards,

    Eyal

  • WiFi direct is certainly interesting, and worth waiting for.  Is PSP_03.20.00.xx a dead end?

  • Hi,

    I agree that WiFi direct is interesting feature, in addition PSP_03.20.00.xx  will not be used for AM18x SDK moving forward.

    Regards,

    Eyal

  • Hi,

    I have ported our company's proprietary wlan driver on to the OMAP L138 board to support our wi-fi card. It is working perfectly and am able to connect to an access point with that board. Our card is interfacing through SDIO slot. Now I have the following doubts:

    1) It is mentioned that NAND, NOR and SDIO are multiplexed and so we cant use them all at a once(mentioned not to enable all in kernel config). Currently I am using NFS server, TFTP server to load uImage and my target file system on to the board. Then using the sdio slot for our wi-fi card. Is there a way, I can flash my uImage and file system on to NAND or other storage media and use my wi-fi card to access wi-fi. Also the documentation doesn't give any procedure to boot  file system from sd card and copy it on to SDRAM for stand-alone usage.

    2) I am using iperf to measure the throughputs and I am getting very low throughputs than our card could give. I am using 'arago-am18xx-demo-image-da850-omapl138-evm' file system and DaVinci-PSP-SDK-03.20.00.14 kernel. Is there any change, I should make regarding sdio drivers for good throughputs??? Are there any updated versions of the filesystem or the kernel I am using??

    Regards,

    Rupesh

  • Dear All,

    This is a reminder that this forum and TI engineering team is focused on supporting the WL1271 device as the preferred WiFi and Bluetooth solution for TI host processors.

    Adnan

  • Eyal,

    Our main goal is to test WLAN in station mode using a terminal or a GUI on a TI AM18x device.

    We are using SpectrumDigital's AM1810 board attached to TI TMDXWL1271DC18XL1X OpenLink open source Wi-Fi and Bluetooth daughter card connected via SDIO interface.

    The kernel and the filesystem come from ti-sdk-am180x-evm-05.02.00.00.

    Based on this discussion, it looks like this SDK has open source driver for 1271 chip set.

    Can you please explain the detailed procedure to turn on this opensource driver in the kernel and the procedure to test WLAN in station mode?

    Shilpa.

  • Eyal,

    Thanks for the links. I wish these links were easy to find. We finally got the wifi to work with the kernel at tftpboot and filesystem on the 1.8V SD CARD that comes with the wifi card.

    When we program the kernel on the SD card, we get the following error.

    Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0

    reading uImage

    [ ST0 ERROR 8]

    block read failed: -18

    ** Unable to read "uImage" from mmc 0:1 **

    Wrong Image Format for bootm command

    ERROR: can't get kernel image!

    U-Boot >

    Can you please tell us what we are doing wrong here?

    Shilpa.

  • Looks like SDK5.03 has been delayed again, to Dec. 2011.  Is there any chance that it will actually be ready in December, or will it be delayed yet again at that time?

     

  • as far as i know now, it will be released iddle of December. it will still be based on Kernel 2.6.37

  • I've been working with 5.02:  more specifically, the AM1808 individual components.  wl12xx_set_power() in board-da850-evm.c is entered to turn on power, and a bit later it's entered again to turn power off.  Before I start debugging the code, can you answer the following:

    1.  Is there a menu-config setting for WL12xx?

    2.  Are 0004-PSP03.21.00.04.sdk-activate-wireless-extensions.patch and 0005-Davinci-da850-Add-Mistral-WL12XX-config-support-to.patch applied to am180x-evm-sdk-src-05.02.00.00.tar.gz?  The patches point to "/home/hudson/amsdk-nightly-build/arm9/arago/recipes/linux/linux-davinci-2.6.37-psp03.21.00.04.sdk/00"

    3.  What is the expected release day in December for 5.03?

    Inderjit

  • I enabled some additional settings as noted here:  http://www.omappedia.org/wiki/Mac80211_based_open_source_architecture

    I included the options in the Kernel, instead of using modules ("*" instead of "M", not sure if this is the right thing to do).

    Now there are multiple power-ons and power-offs of the WiFi module:

    Powering on wifi                                                                                                       
    davinci_mmc davinci_mmc.1: Using DMA, 4-bit mode                                                                       
    usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid                                                                        
    usbhid: USB HID core driver                                                                                            
    ALSA device list:                                                                                                      
      No soundcards found.                                                                                                 
    nf_conntrack version 0.5.0 (1951 buckets, 7804 max)                                                                    
    ip_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team                                                                           
    TCP cubic registered                                                                                                   
    NET: Registered protocol family 17                                                                                     
    Bluetooth: L2CAP ver 2.15                                                                                              
    Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized                                                                              
    Bluetooth: SCO (Voice Link) ver 0.6                                                                                    
    Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized                                                                                
    Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized                                                                                
    Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized                                                                             
    Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.11                                                                                             
    Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3                                                                           
    Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast                                                                            
    Bluetooth: HIDP (Human Interface Emulation) ver 1.2                                                                    
    lib80211: common routines for IEEE802.11 drivers                                                                       
    davinci_emac_probe: using random MAC addr: c6:4d:52:51:73:7a                                                           
    omap_rtc omap_rtc: setting system clock to 2009-04-14 23:32:59 UTC (1239751979)                                        
    mmc1: card claims to support voltages below the defined range. These will be ignored.                                  
    mmc1: queuing unknown CIS tuple 0x91 (3 bytes)                                                                         
    mmc1: new SDIO card at address 0001                                                                                    
    Powering off wifi                                                                                                      
    Powering on wifi                                                                                                       
    Powering off wifi                                                                                                      
    Powering on wifi
                                                                                                           
    wl1271: loaded                                                                                                         
    wl1271: initialized                                                                                                    
    Powering off wifi                                                                                                      
    davinci_mdio davinci_mdio.0: resetting idled controller                                                                
    net eth0: attached PHY driver [Generic PHY] (mii_bus:phy_addr=0:00, id=221555)                                         
    IP-Config: Failed to open wlan0

    .....

    Any suggestions?

    Inderjit

     

  • I've noticed that the MMC1 interface is not working correctly (incorrect clock frequency, CMD has activity, but data lines do not).  I'll need to figure out why - ignore the above for now.

  • It looks like the WL1271 is not responding to any commands.  The clock frequency is correct for initialization.  Can you answer the following:

    Are 0004-PSP03.21.00.04.sdk-activate-wireless-extensions.patch and 0005-Davinci-da850-Add-Mistral-WL12XX-config-support-to.patch applied to am180x-evm-sdk-src-05.02.00.00.tar.gz?  The patches point to "/home/hudson/amsdk-nightly-build/arm9/arago/recipes/linux/linux-davinci-2.6.37-psp03.21.00.04.sdk/00"

  • Hi Inderjit,

    As for patches "0004-PSP03.21.00.04.sdk-activate-wireless-extensions.patch" and "0005-Davinci-da850-Add-Mistral-WL12XX-config-support-to.patch", they are applied on the 05.02.00.00 SDK, you can open the source code and confirm. Could you please clarify what you mean by "The patches point to "/home/hudson/amsdk-nightly-build/arm9/arago/recipes/linux/linux-davinci-2.6.37-psp03.21.00.04.sdk/00"?

    As I understand, you are using SDK 05.02 as your work base. Can you please elaborate on how you checked the clock frequency and which commands are not responding?

    Regards,

    Moosa Baransi

  • In ~/linux-2.6.37-psp03.21.00.04.sdk/patches, the following are links that point to "/home/hudson/amsdk-nightly-build/arm9/arago/recipes/linux/linux-davinci-2.6.37-psp03.21.00.04.sdk/00"

    0004-PSP03.21.00.04.sdk-activate-wireless-extensions.patch
    0005-Davinci-da850-Add-Mistral-WL12XX-config-support-to.patch

    To measure the clock frequency, you need a scope probe on the SD1_CLK pin.  The TiWi-R2 module does not respond to any commands:  SD1_DAT0 never changes:  it's always high.  Are you seeing something similar?

     

  • I have an AM180x EVM with the SDK of 05.02.00.00, and the wireless connectivity works without issues.

    Could it be a hardware issue? Do you have the same problem on other boards?

    When booting, if you run the command cat /proc/config.gz | gunzip | grep REFCLOCK, what is the value you see for CONFIG_DA850_MISTRAL_WL12XX_REFCLOCK variable? If it is set to 2 it means that you work with 2.4GHz antenna. If it is set to 1 it means you work with 5 GHz antenna. Please check that the daughter card works with the right frequency according to this input.

    Regards,

    Moosa Baransi