Re: [PATCH rtw-next v7 0/6] wifi: rtw88: add RTL8723B/RTL8723BS support

[Bitterblue Smith <rtl8821cerfe2@gmail.com>]

On 02/10/2026 10:38, Luka Gejak wrote:
> This is the second of two series adding support for the Realtek RTL8723B
> 802.11n chipset and its RTL8723BS SDIO variant to rtw88. The preparation
> series has landed in rtw-next, so this series carries the chip register
> definitions, the BB/RF/AGC tables, the chip driver, the SDIO bind and the
> build glue.
> 
> The first patch is the only shared-core change. It moves the CCK power
> detect setter out of rtw88xxa.c into phy.c as rtw_phy_cck_pd_set(), so this
> chip can use it without pulling in rtw88_88xxa. The six chip patches apply
> on top of it and can be read on their own.
> 
> The driver supports:
> 
>   - RTL8723B / RTL8723BS, SDIO only
>   - 2.4 GHz 802.11n, HT20 and HT40
>   - one spatial stream
>   - station mode
> 
> Only station mode has been validated. The common rtw88 core advertises AP
> and IBSS for all chips, so those modes are advertised for RTL8723BS as
> well, but neither has been tested. An out-of-tree tester has reported AP
> mode associating without DHCP completing. The five additional SDIO IDs are
> included for parity with the existing staging driver, and only the 0xb723
> device has been exercised.
> 
> The chip driver requests:
> 
>   rtw88/rtw8723b_fw.bin
> 
> This is the version 41 firmware extracted from the Realtek rtl8723bs
> vendor driver. It was submitted separately to linux-firmware with its
> extraction provenance and carries Ping-Ke Shih's Reviewed-by. There is no
> known native rtw88 RTL8723B firmware.
> 
> The implementation is based on the initial RTL8723B work by Michael
> Straube:
> 
>   https://github.com/mistraube/rtw88/tree/rtl8723bs
> 
> Michael's Co-developed-by and Signed-off-by tags are present on the three
> chip-code patches containing code derived from that work.
> 
> The known limitations are unchanged. Bluetooth coexistence depends on the
> BT firmware's status reports. During A2DP streaming those reports identify
> a connected link but do not expose the active profile, so the WiFi
> coexistence logic cannot make a correct traffic-aware decision. WiFi
> throughput can fall sharply while audio remains smooth. This is documented
> rather than guessed around in the WiFi driver. The intermittent RTL8723BS
> firmware failure to leave LPS also remains, and instrumentation shows a
> firmware stall rather than a polling timeout that a longer budget would
> fix.
> 
> Testing
> =======
> 
> The exact six-commit branch builds with W=1, with no new warnings, and
> links all rtw88 modules with real modpost. Sparse and smatch were run over
> the rtw88 directory. Sparse is clean. Smatch reports nothing in the 8723B
> files, and its only output is an existing container_of static assertion
> from include/net/neighbour.h while checking usb.c. checkpatch --strict is
> clean apart from the complex-macro report on TRANS_SEQ_END, which is an
> initializer macro that rtw8703b.c already defines in the same way, and the
> "does MAINTAINERS need updating" reminder on the file-adding patches, which
> the existing REALTEK WIRELESS DRIVER (rtw88) entry already answers with its
> F: line. git diff --check is clean and all six commits are GPG-signed.
> 
> Hardware validation covered module identity, boot, scan,
> authentication, association, WPA2 key negotiation and DHCP, TCP and UDP
> traffic in both directions, ten scans while connected, and twenty module
> reload and reassociate cycles. dmesg is clean, with no warnings, no errors
> and no TX-report, H2C or leave-LPS messages. The extended soak added six 30
> second TCP runs, UDP saturation in both access categories with no loss, a
> 2000 packet ping run with no loss, and three idle power save periods with a
> clean wake. The test machine provides only s2idle, so suspend and resume
> are not covered.
> 
> Changes in v7:
>   - dropped rtw8723b_sdio_restore_pad_ctrl() and its two remaining call
>     sites. The register it adjusted is only written by
>     rtw_mac_pre_system_cfg(), which returns before that write for 8051
>     chips, so nothing in the driver sets the bits the function cleared and
>     the hardware default already has them clear.
>   - rtw8723b_fill_txdesc_checksum() now uses fill_txdesc_checksum_common()
>     from tx.h. The now unused linux/unaligned.h include is dropped.
> 
> Luka Gejak (6):
>   wifi: rtw88: move the 88xxa CCK power detect setter to phy.c
>   wifi: rtw88: 8723b: add the RTL8723B register definitions
>   wifi: rtw88: 8723b: add the RTL8723B BB, RF and AGC tables
>   wifi: rtw88: 8723b: add the RTL8723B chip driver
>   wifi: rtw88: 8723bs: add the RTL8723BS SDIO bind
>   wifi: rtw88: 8723bs: enable building the RTL8723BS driver
> 
>  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/Kconfig    |   18 +
>  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/Makefile   |    6 +
>  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/phy.c      |   39 +
>  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/phy.h      |    1 +
>  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/reg.h      |   34 +
>  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723b.c | 2550 +++++++++++++++++
>  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723b.h |   14 +
>  .../wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723b_table.c   |  861 ++++++
>  .../wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723b_table.h   |   17 +
>  .../net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723bs.c    |   59 +
>  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8812a.c |    2 +-
>  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8821a.c |    2 +-
>  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88xxa.c |   38 -
>  drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88xxa.h |    1 -
>  14 files changed, 3601 insertions(+), 41 deletions(-)
>  create mode 100644 drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723b.c
>  create mode 100644 drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723b.h
>  create mode 100644 drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723b_table.c
>  create mode 100644 drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723b_table.h
>  create mode 100644 drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw8723bs.c
> 

Looks good to me.

Reviewed-by: Bitterblue Smith <rtl8821cerfe2@gmail.com>