ISL3877

• High Data Rate Wireless LAN Systems Targeting the IEEE 802.11a Standard
• Cardbus32 Wireless LAN Adapters
• Mini-PCI Wireless LAN Cards
• 3V PCI Wireless LAN Adapters

The Intersil ISL3877 Wireless LAN Integrated Media Access Controller with Baseband Processor is part of the PRISM® 5, 5GHz radio chipset. The ISL3877 irectly interfaces with the Intersil's ISL3787 1.2GHz IF converter with AGC and synthesizer. Adding Intersil's ISL3687 5GHz RF/IF converter with integrated synthesizer and a Power Amp completes an end-to-end WLAN Chipset solution for the 802.11a 5GHz standard. Protocol and PHY support are implemented in firmware thus, supporting custom WLAN solutions.

Firmware implements the full IEEE 802.11a Wireless LAN MAC protocol. It supports BSS and IBSS operation under DCF, and operation under the optional Point Coordination Function (PCF). Low level protocol functions such as RTS/CTS generation and acknowledgment, fragmentation and de-fragmentation, and automatic beacon monitoring are handled without host intervention. Active scanning is performed autonomously once initiated by host command. Host interface command and status handshakes allow concurrent operations from multi-threaded I/O drivers. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM) combined with BPSK through 64 QAM modulation of the individual carriers and a variety of convolutional coding rates provides 8 selectable data rates.

Built-in flexibility allows the ISL3877 to be configured for a range of applications. The MAC is based on the ARM 946E processor core that offers a wide variety of code development support tools.

The ISL3877 is housed in a thin plastic BGA package suitable for CardBus or Mini-PCI circuit card applications.