Wifi PHY device?

[vier_kuifjes]

I'm looking for the simplest way to connect a MCF52259 device to a wireless network. To connect to a wired LAN, one can simply connect a PHY chip to the MII interface of the CPU.

I wonder if the same is possible to connect to a Wifi network? What device would be suitable for this? I have googled a lot to find such a device but sofar haven't found anything...

[vier_kuifjes · Accepted solution]

It looks like this device exactly does what I am looking for...

The iW-SM2144N1-EU-0 from Connect One, alias WiReach.

http://www.connectone.com/products.asp?did=39&pid=88

Now if I could only get my hands on one of these...

[MichalKonieczny]

Not so easy. I also got initially excited, but then after studying specs, it appears that ConnectOne modules support only RMII connection. Smaller Coldfire chips (5223x, 5225x) have only MII. So, no direct connection as ETH PHY is possible. To connect it as PHY transceiver, appropriate shim would be required. For example two additional PHYs: one talks MII to Coldfire EMAC, then TX/RX connection between PHYs, then second PHY talks RMII with ConnectOne module. Quite a waste of resources.

[allankliu]

I am also looking for the same solution. So far, RS232/SPI to WiFi is the solution. I expected Freescale can upgrade its MQX to support USB CDC(acm/ecm...). But it seems that in the coming month, they have no plan for this. They only plan to implement USB CDC device, instead of USB CDC host driver. And obviously the RTCS library should be upgraded as well.

Since WiFi world still uses many native drivers, the most popular WiFi USB dongle for embedded applications comes from VIA, which supports both AP and device mode with open source driver. However, its RF performance is poor, according to some people working on ARM platforms.