Wi-Fi System-on-Chip (SoC) vendors provide reference drivers to enable their devices, typically for Linux on a single MPU platform. Because the SoC vendors are targeting consumer applications, limitations that require power-cycling of the Wi-Fi silicon to resolve are common. For mission-critical applications, such as healthcare, a simple reset of a device or its Wi-Fi radio is not an option.

Many module providers will redistribute the SoC vendor host reference driver and offer limited integration support. Silex Technology, an NXP Gold Partner, takes this process a step further by fully testing the vendor drivers to identify any connectivity issues, fixing the bugs that would negatively impact mission-critical deployments and enhancing the overall stability of the final host driver. 

The new whitepaper, “Test, Fix, Enhance: Transforming NXP Reference Drivers into Reliable and Stable Wi-Fi Solutions for Medical Devices,” explores the way Silex enhances the NXP reference drivers using the SX-SDMAX, to offer the most feature-rich, reliable, and stable driver available for the IW61x platform. Readers will get information on: 

• Reliability for mission-critical medical applications
• Radio wave certification support
• SoC FW recovery function
• Switching between low RSSI and background scan for roaming
• WPA supplicant
• Functional specifications of Silex Technology host driver
• Bug fixes
• Wi-Fi Alliance testing