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Broadcom BCM63xx

This page covers the BCM63xx SoC specificities, but the BCM33xx SoC (excluding BCM3302 which is a CPU) are the exact same chip, except that the DSL core is replaced with a DOCSIS/EuroDOCSIS one.

Broadcom63xx SoC integrates ADSL/ADSL2+ features, routing, and external Wireless NIC.

This SoC is widely used by most xDSL platforms in the world. It is one of the most successful xDSL platforms due to the simplicity of migrating old platforms (e.g: BCM6345) to new ones without much software impact. The cost of the complete solution (SoC, DSL line-driver, Wi-Fi

Linux support

The Broadcom BCM63xx currently only works with BCM6338/BCM6345/BCM6348/BCM6358 boards. Others, like BCM6368, BCM6328 are currently being worked on.
There are working drivers for USB (OHCI and EHCI) under the GPL
Ethernet, DSL and ATM are not supported. Not by some binary nor are there GPL drivers available!
- Belkin has released "GPL code for the F5D7633", but it only has binary Broadcom drivers.
- TP-link also has some code out for the platform –> see TP-link GPL code for many of their products
- D-Link GPL download center: D-Link GPL code for all of their products (DSL-2640B, DSL-2740B).
- Netgear has released some sources for DSL-driver: DG834GBv4 GPL and closed code

→ brcm63xx.imagetag

Existent 63xx variants

There are six main 63xx variants:

SoC	CPU MHz	USB Device	USB Host	Wireless NIC	ADSL2	ADSL2+	VDSL	VDSL2	Fiber
bcm6345	140	1.1	☐	☐	✔	☐	☐	?	?
bcm6335	140	☐	☐	☐	✔	☐	☐	?	☐
bcm6338	240	1.1	☐	☐	✔	✔	☐	?	☐
bcm6348	240/256	1.1	1.1	✔	✔	✔	☐	?	☐
bcm6358	300	2.0	2.0	✔	✔	✔	✔	?	☐
bcm6362	400	2.0	2.0	✔	✔	✔	☐	☐	☐
bcm6368	300	2.0	2.0	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
bcm6816	300	2.0	2.0	✔	✔	✔	✔	?	✔
bcm6818	400	2.0	2.0	✔	✔	✔	✔	?	✔

The third digit, when set to 3 (like in BCM6335, BCM6338) denotes a single-chip and cost-reduction oriented design.
There are also some other variants like bcm6341, which is a DSP used in VoIP products in conjonction with a BCM6348 SoC.

Finished tasks

The support for Broadcom 63xx is at this state :

Full Linux support for BCM6338, BCM6345, BCM6348 and BCM6358 with runtime detection of the SoC on which the kernel is running
GPL drivers for Ethernet, OHCI, EHCI, SPI, Watchdog
No available drivers (neither binary, nor GPL) for DSL, ATM, VoIP, on-board SLIC/SLAC

Firmware/Bootloader

Some devices use RedBoot such as Inventel Liveboxes. Most of the others use CFE with a built-in LZMA decompressor. CFE is not using standard LZMA compression arguments, and most noticebly, changes the dictionnary size, so beware. Thomson routers have their own bootloader.

How to help

Download: DG834GBv4 GPL and closed code and help writing specification for the DSL core, the place to host specifications is BCM63xx at Sipsolutions.net.