Realtek Semiconductor RTL8821AE Users Manual

RTL8821AE

Combo module User’s Manual

Rev.0.1

28 Jan 2013

Realtek Semiconductor Corp.

No. 2, Innovation Road II, Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan
Tel.: [phone]. Fax: [phone]
www.realtek.com.tw

RTL8821AE Combo module User Manual

COPYRIGHT

©2012 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced,
transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or translated into any language in any form or by any
means without the written permission of Realtek Semiconductor Corp.

DISCLAIMER

Realtek provides this document ‘as is’, without warranty of any kind. Realtek may make improvements
and/or changes in this document or in the product described in this document at any time. This document
could include technical inaccuracies or typographical errors.

TRADEMARKS

Realtek is a trademark of Realtek Semiconductor Corporation. Other names mentioned in this document are
trademarks/registered trademarks of their respective owners.

USING THIS DOCUMENT

This document is intended for the software engineer’s reference and provides detailed programming
information.

Though every effort has been made to ensure that this document is current and accurate, more information
may have become available subsequent to the production of this guide.

REVISION HISTORY

Revision Release Date Summary

0.1 2013/1/28 Preliminary release.

Single-Chip 802.11b/g/n/ac 1T1R WLAN Controller

ii

Track ID: JATR-3375-16 Rev. 0.1

RTL8821AE Combo module User Manual

Table of Contents

1. GENERAL DESCRIPTION................................................................................................................................................1

2. PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS..........................................................................................................................................3

2.1. ENVIRONMENTAL ............................................................................................................................................................3

2.1.1. Operating ...............................................................................................................................................................3

2.1.2. Storage....................................................................................................................................................................3

2.2. FUNCTIONAL SPECIFICATIONS.........................................................................................................................................3

2.3. WARNING........................................................................................................................................................................5

3.5.1 Federal Communication Commission Interference Statement......................................................................................5

3.5.2 Industry Canada Statement..........................................................................................................................................6

3.5.3 NCC

警語

...................................................................................................................................................................10

List of Tables

TABLE 2. FUNCTIONAL SPECIFICATIONS .......................................................................................................................................3

Single-Chip 802.11b/g/n/ac 1T1R WLAN Controller

iii

Track ID: JATR-3375-16 Rev. 0.1

RTL8821AE Combo module User Manual

1. General Description

The Realtek RTL8821AE is a highly integrated single-chip 802.11b/g/n/ac 1T1R WLAN PCI Express
network interface controller with integrated Bluetooth 2.1/3/0/4.0 USB interface controller. It combines a
WLAN MAC, a 1T1R capable WLAN baseband, BT Protocol Stack (LM, LL, and LE), BT Baseband,
modem, and WLAN/BT RF in a single chip. The RTL8821AE provides a complete solution for a high
throughput performance integrated wireless LAN and Bluetooth device.

The RTL8821AE WLAN baseband implements Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)
with 1 transmit and 1 receive path and is compatible with the 802.11ac specification. Features include one
spatial stream transmission, short guard interval (GI) of 400ns, spatial spreading, and transmission over
20MHz , 40MHz and 80MHz channel bandwidth.

For legacy compatibility, Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS), Complementary Code Keying (CCK)
and OFDM baseband processing are included to support all 802.11b and 802.11g data rates. Differential
phase shift keying modulation schemes, DBPSK and DQPSK with data scrambling capability, are available,
and CCK provides support for legacy data rates, with long or short preamble. The high-speed FFT/IFFT
paths, combined with BPSK, QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM and 256-QAM modulation of the individual
subcarriers and rate compatible punctured convolutional coding with coding rate of 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, and 5/6,
provide up to 433.3Mbps for 802.11ac OFDM.

A RTL8821AE built-in enhanced signal detector, adaptive frequency domain equalizer, and a soft-decision
Viterbi decoder help to alleviate multi-path effects and mutual interference in the reception of multiple
streams. Robust interference detection and suppression are provided to protect against Bluetooth, cordless
phone, and microwave oven interference.

Efficient IQ-imbalance, DC offset, phase noise, frequency offset, and timing offset compensations are
provided for the radio frequency front-end. Selectable digital transmit and receive FIR filters are provided
to meet transmit spectrum mask requirements and to reject adjacent channel interference, respectively.

The RTL8821AE WLAN Controller supports fast receiver Automatic Gain Control (AGC) with
synchronous and asynchronous control loops among antennas, antenna diversity functions, and adaptive
transmit power control function to obtain better performance in the analog portions of the transceiver.

The RTL8821AE WLAN MAC supports 802.11e for multimedia applications, 802.11i for security, and

802.11n/802.11ac Draft 2.0 for enhanced MAC protocol efficiency. Using packet aggregation techniques
such as A-MPDU with BA and A-MSDU, protocol efficiency is significantly improved. Power saving
mechanisms such as Legacy Power Save, and U-APSD, reduce the power wasted during idle time, and
compensate for the extra power required to transmit OFDM. The RTL8821AE provides simple legacy and
20MHz/40MHz/80MHz co-existence mechanisms to ensure backward and network compatibility.

Single-Chip 802.11b/g/n/ac 1T1R WLAN Controller

1

Track ID: JATR-3375-16 Rev. 0.1

RTL8821AE Combo module User Manual

The RTL8821AE Bluetooth controller complies with Bluetooth core specification v4.0, and supports dual
mode (BR/EDR + AMP + Low Energy Controllers). It is compatible with previous versions, including v2.1
+ EDR and v3.0 + HS. For BR/EDR, it supports scatternet topology and allows four active links in slave
mode, and seven active links in master mode. For Low Energy, it supports multiple states and allows eight
active links in master mode. The links in BR/EDR and LE can be active simultaneously.

Single-Chip 802.11b/g/n/ac 1T1R WLAN Controller

2

Track ID: JATR-3375-16 Rev. 0.1