
Wireless LAN PC Card Operational Discription
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2. About RTL8180
2.1 General Description
A block diagram that is based on the RTL8180 performs the inter-networking between
Ethernet and IEEE802.11b Wireless LAN is shown in Figure 2.
The Realtek RTL8180 is a highly integrated and cost-effective wireless LAN network
interface controller that integrates a wireless LAN MAC and a direct sequence spread
spectrum baseband processor into one chip. It provides 32-bit performance, PCI bus master
capability, and full compliance with IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.11b specifications.
The RTL8180 has on board A/D and D/A converters for analog I and Q inputs and outputs.
Differential phase shift keying modulation schemes DBPSK and DQPSK, with data scrambling
capability, are available along with complementary code keying to provide a variety of data
rates. Both receive and transmit AGC functions obtain maximum performance in the analog
portions of the transceiver. The RTL8180 also includes a built-in enhanced signal detector to
alleviate severe multipath effects. The target environment for 11Mbps is 125ns RMS delay
spread. It also supports short preamble and antenna diversity. For security issues, the
RTL8180 also implements a high performance internal WEP engine supporting up to 104 bit
WEP.
It also supports Advanced Configuration Power management Interface (ACPI), PCI power
management system for modern operating systems that are capable of Operating System
directed Power Management (OSPM) to achieve the most efficient power management
possible.
In addition to the ACPI feature, the RTL8180 also supports remote wake-up (including AMD
Magic Packet and Microsoft®wake-up frame) in both ACPI and APM environments. The
RTL8180 is capable of performing an internal reset through the application of auxiliary power.
When the auxiliary power is applied and the main power remains off, the RTL8180 is ready
and waiting for the Magic Packet or wake-up frame to wake the system up. Also, the LWAKE
pin provides four different output signals including active high, active low, positive pulse,
and negative pulse. The versatility of the RTL8180 LWAKE pin provides motherboards with
Wake-On-LAN (WOL) functionality.
PCI Vital Product Data (VPD) is also supported to provide the information that uniquely