bcmdhd, cywdhd or brcmfmac on Android w/ Kernel 4.9?

[ej]

Hello,

We're currently using the BCMDHD driver with an Allwinner A50 BSP with Android 8.1 oreo and Kernel 4.9. We are moving to the CYW43455 with Azurewave as our module provider and we're not clear what would be the best driver to use:

1. BCMDHD is provided in the A50 BSP, and we have been using it successfully with our previous module supplier
2. CYWDHD is provided by Azurewave as their preferred driver, but seems like it is an older fork of BCMDHD and has seen very little development compared to the BSP's BCMDHD.
3. BRCMFMAC is Cypress's preferred path forward for security updates and feature support (WPA3/DPP etc), but we're not sure how risky / labor intensive it is to port it to our BSP's 4.9 kernel?

Any insights would be much appreciated - which driver should we use? Thanks!

[GauravS_31 · Accepted solution]

We would recommend the Cypress FMAC driver for 43455. The driver release package would contain an enclosed README document for the bring up instructions including backporting the driver to kernel 4.9. We will provide support if there are any issues in FMAC bring up.

[ej]

To follow up we have found in testing that the cydhd driver was able to operate in noisier conditions and with better throughput than the brcmfmac driver.

Additionally we've been told by Infineon and AzureWave FAEs that we should use the cydhd driver, not the brcmfmac driver, for our situation. We will likely use the brcmfmac driver in the future when it has official FAE support on a later android platform than oreo.