802.11 Wireless LAN Cards


Here are some internal pictures of a Nokia C021 wireless LAN card.  This 802.11 card is based on the Intersil PRISM chipset.  Refer to their documentation for a more in-depth analysis.


Inside a Nokia C021

Select a picture for larger image.

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SMA antenna jack and the Toko TDF2A-2450-T bandpass filter.  Also shown are the transmit/receive LEDs.  The right section is the RF power amplifiers and receive pre-amplifier sections.

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Alternate view.  The 6-pin IC sorta in the middle is a NEC UPG152 GaAs MMIC switch.  You can tap it's control lines to control an external amplifier.

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A little better view.

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Shown are the HFA3726 400 MHz quadrature IF modulator/demodulator and the HFA3824 direct sequence spread spectrum baseband processor (small IC upper right) and their support components.

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Shown are the HFA3524 dual frequency synthesizer and the associated oscillators and VCOs.  Off the to right is the AM79C930 PCnet mobile wireless LAN MAC controller, the 128k flash RAM and the 32k SRAM.

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A picture.

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Another picture.

Inside a SOHOware NCP130

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Antenna connector.  Reverse polarity SMA connector.  Diversity antenna switching is done by applying the DC control voltage via the coax to the included external diversity antenna.

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UPG152TA TX/RX switch and the bandpass filter.

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RF power amplifier, standard PRISM2 based hardware.

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