User's Manual

8
3. Hardware Architecture
z Block Diagram
z Main Chipset Information
Item Model Number Vendor
MAC/BBP/CPU RT2880 Ralink
11b/g/n Transceiver RT2820 Ralink
z Main Chipset Specification
MAC/Baseband Processor
The RT2880 SOC combines Ralink’s 802.11n draft compliant 2T3R MAC/BBP,
a high performance 266-MHz MIPS4KEc CPU core, a Gigabit Ethernet MAC
and a PCI host/device, to enable a multitude of high performance,
cost-effective 802.11n applications. The RT2880 has two RF companion
chips, the RT2820 for 2.4G-band operation and the RT2850 for dual band
2.4G or 5G operation. In addition to the traditional AP/router
application, the chipset can be implemented as an WLAN “intelligent”
NIC, drastically reducing the load on the host SOC, such as DSL/Cable
or Multimedia Applications processors. Users can treat the WLAN iNIC
as a simple Ethernet device for easy porting and guaranteed 802.11n WLAN
performance without the need to upgrade to an expensive host SOC.
RT2880 MAC/BBP/CPU Features