1. What is this stuff?
The AR531x/231x is a platform by Atheros, which is used for dual-band and single-band 108Mb/s routers and accesspoints. It is also refered as a WiSoC - Wireless System-on-a-Chip, and the radio inside often refered as RoC - Radio-on-a-Chip.
2. Atheros WiSoC generations/evolution
1. AR5001 generation (802.11a only)
AR5001AP (AR5311 CPU + AR5111 5GHz RoC)
2. AR5002 generation (first dual-band designs)
- AR5002AP-A (AR2312 CPU + AR5122 5GHz RoC)
AR5002AP-G (AR2312 CPU + AR2112 2.4GHz RoC)
AR5002AP-X (AR2312 CPU + AR5112 2.4/5GHz RoC)
AR5002AP-2X (AR5312 CPU + AR5112 2.4/5GHz RoC + AR2112 2.4GHz RoC)
3-4. AR5003 and AR5004 generation (Super-AG technology) The AR5003 got merged into the AR5004. The new WiSoCs are/were in production, but they were not announced.
- AR2313
- AR5213
- AR2314
5. AR5005 generation (MIMO technology, onboard AES engine, serial flash)
6. AR5006 generation (single-chip solutions)
AR5006AP-G (AR2315) - 54Mbps only
AR5006AP-GS (AR2316)
- AR5315
7. AR5007 generation (radical decrease of BOM)
AR5007AP-G (AR2317)
3. Devices
- Bufallo WER-AM54G54 (AR5002AP-2X)
D-Link DI-524, at least HW rev C1 (AR2313), but it only has 8MB RAM and 1MB ROM.
D-Link DWL-2210AP (AR2313)
D-Link DWL-2100AP (AR5002AP-G : core AR2312@180/240MHz, radio AR2112)
D-Link DWL-7100AP (AR5002AP-2X)
- D-Link DWL-774 (AR5002AP-2X) (discontinued)
LevelOne WBR-3405TX : AR2313A and Marvell 88E6060 switch
Linksys WRT55AG v2 Product Link (AR5002AP-2X)
Micronet SP918GL Product Link (AR2313A) seems to be identical with D-Link DWL-2210AP
Meraki Mini (AR2315) - source available for Meraki's own Linux port
MicraDigital/Belkin F5D7230 (ver.1020ec) (AR2315A)
Netgear WGR614v3.
Netgear OpenWrtDocs/Hardware/Netgear/WGT624 Product link (AR5002AP-G) (v2 AR5001AP)
Netgear WG102 (AR2313)
- Senao NL-5354 AP1 Aries2 (AR5002AP-2X)
- Senao NL-3054 AP3 Aries2 (AR2313)
Siemens OpenWrtDocs/Hardware/Siemens/SE551 (AR2316)
Wistron CA8-4/CE8-1 aka Ovislink WLA-5000AP, LinkPro WLT-108AAP, Diswire CAP2/5 (AR5002AP-X)
Wistron CR8-2 aka LinkPro WLT-108AAR (AR5002AP-2X)
- Smc WEBT-G aka Philips SNR6500 aka Siemens Wlan Repeater 108 (AR2316)
- X-Micro XWL-11GRAG : AR5002AP-G (AR2312A+AR2112) and Marvell 88E6060
OEM dual APs, internally identical:
TrendNet TEW-510APB Atheros AR5312 SoC 220MHz
- Tonze AW-6660
- SparkLAN WX-7800A
XtendLan WDAP-1001
and many more.
Atheros chipsets based wireless 802.11a/b/g devices
4. TODO
Write docs on the VxWorks bootloader
- Get JTAG on the go
- Get it work, tested
5. Firmware/Bootloader
There are at least 3 variants
VxWorks' own bootloader - most Atheros devices (There is a description of the basic workings on the Netgear WGT624 page.)
RedBoot - the manual is very good.
NetBoot - the standard loader in dwl7100ap allowed boot firmware image via network from tftp server direct to ram - this method is useful for testing, but can not be used for real work...
- ThreadX - D-Link uses OS called ThreadX on lowend 1M flash + 8M RAM models. They have custom boot loader that doesn't output anything sensible to serial port but does have recovery mode so you can upload firmware using browser.
6. JTAG
Atheros 531x/231x use standart MIPS EJTAG v2.6 and most of devices use a 14-pin EJTAG header. See a JTAG Cables for more info on using JTAG.
The latest Openwince JTAG fork contains support for the Atheros chips. The CVS snapshot may be found there: jtag-0.6-cvs-20051228
7. How to help
If you want to help and got some basic kernel hacking knowledge, you should start by familiarizing yourself with the OpenWrt build system. All the kernel and image stuff is in the target/ subdirectory.
AR531x/231x-specific kernel patches will go into target/linux/linux-2.4/patches/ar531x. The build system part that constructs the firmware images for AR531x based routers will be in target/linux/image/ar531x.
8. Work done currently
Support for the AR2315 based devices is available in Kamikaze. Support for the older/newer designs will be added soon soon, with runtime board detection support.