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From: Mike Harrison on 23 Feb 2010 04:30

>Well it doesn't look like there is much, if anything, available within the
>realm of uController to PCI card interconnection. Conceivably this may mean
>that my line of inquiry was indeed stupid, and that there is considerably
>more to the problem than the ISA interface presented. Looks like I'll have
>to do a bit of PCI bus research, as I'm not prepared to chuck it in just
>yet.

Ubicom do some MCUs designed to interface to PCI peripherals - the Logitech Squeezebox audio player
uses one to interface to a PCI WLAN module : http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/sbduet.html

You might also want to look at MCUs that have USB otg/host to talk to a USB wifi module, however
these modules are likely to be poorly documented, if at all. I suspect they may also rely on the
host PC to do some of their work.
From: Modafinil on 27 Feb 2010 18:09
"hansp" <hans.pufal(a)gmail.com> wrote in message
news:3d416bbf-0338-47b1-b1a2-4a95e1575e66(a)f8g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...
On Feb 21, 7:51 am, "Modafinil" <inva...(a)email.au> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Some time ago I managed to interface an Ethernet NIC controller to an
> 8051.
>
> Probably a very nieve question, yet how should I rate my chances of doing
> the same with a Wifi controller? Is there that much added complexity to
> driving a NIC?

Just today I ordered this little unit:
http://asynclabs.com/store?page=shop.product_details&product_id=24
Which is an Atmel Amega 328 and WiFi module all packed on to a small
DIP. Asynch Labs also have
Arduino Wifi shields


Hi Hansp,

My stupid browser wouldn't let me fully view the link you posted, yet I was
excited to learn that combined uController and Wifi SoC devices are already
beginning to appear. Many of the semiconductor manufacturer websites now
feature futurist's predictions of the impending ubiquity of less powerfully
resourced network appliances.

Personally, I'm hanging-out for ASIX Corporation's slightly overdue release
of their combined uController with integrated Wifi SOC, from their new
AX220xx device family.
http://www.asix.com.tw/news.php?op=AsixNewsEvent&NewsID=66 This
blisteringly quick 8051/ 80C390 controller pairing pulls 80-MIPS running
standard 8051 instructions, has a full Megabyte of ISP flash program memory,
and sports both 10/100Mbit Fast Ethernet MAC and 802.11a/b/g MAC/ Baseband
Wifi circuitry onboard. I had some involvement in the 8051 adaptation of the
TCP/IP protocol stack code that will ship with the new ASIX Wifi device.
Perhaps understandably, I'm bursting to see how well it performs with ASIX'
advanced integrated TCP/IP offload processing hardware.

Getting back to the surplus PCI Wifi card to uController interfacing
concept, I've recently discovered that some Wifi chips also sport high-speed
serial ports. Could these represent an alternate control option to the
regular PCI bus? Try as I might, I've been fully unsuccessful in locating
any relevant Atheros chipset datasheets. I had hoped these to confirm the
high-speed port's true function, so I'm certainly open to datasheet source
suggestions.if anyone thinks they can help.

Modafanil.



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