4. MAC Design

The Mango 802.11 MAC is implemented as bare-metal C applications that run in two dedicated CPUs.

The Upper MAC has two modes:

• Linux mode: running the linux_dev application which implements the interface to the Linux kernel driver
• Standalone mode: running the standalone AP, STA, or IBSS applications with no higher level OS

The Lower MAC manages access to the wireless medium, the real-time Tx/Rx state machines, and the PHY interface. The Lower MAC applications support either Linux or Standalone modes.

Contents:

• 4.1. MAC Software Applications
  • Linux Device Interface - linux_dev
  • Standalone Access Point (AP)
  • Standalone Client (STA)
  • Standalone Ad-hoc (IBSS)
  • Distributed Coordination Function (DCF)
  • NoMAC
• 4.2. MAC Software Frameworks
  • High MAC Framework
  • Common MAC Framework
  • Low MAC Framework
• 4.3. MAC Interface Core
  • Timers
  • Transmit Controllers
• 4.4. MAC Packet Flow
  • Packet Buffers
  • Tx Packet Flow
  • Rx Packet Flow