2 Functional Overview

This section describes the features supported by the PIC32MZ W1 software release package. This package enables Wi-Fi® functionality on the device, supporting either STA or soft-AP mode and WPA2/WPA3 security. It also provides peripheral drivers, networking stack, network security and sample applications that are supported by the MPLAB Harmony v3 framework. With extensive use of pin multiplexing, the PIC32MZ W1 family can accommodate a large number of peripheral functions. The package has the following components:

  • WLAN applications – For the list of WLAN applications supported by the PIC32MZ W1 family, refer to the WLAN Examples.
  • Peripheral libraries – For the list of peripheral libraries supported by the PIC32MZ W1 family, refer to the Peripheral Examples.
  • Core examples – For the list of core examples supported by the PIC32MZ W1 family, refer to the Core Examples.
  • Third-party libraries – For the list of third party libraries supported by the PIC32MZ W1 family, refer to the following:
  • WLAN Functional APIs – The PIC32MZ W1 Wi-Fi module consists of two instances, a control instance and a data instance.
    • The control instance is managed as a conventional MPLAB Harmony system interface by the system kernel or scheduler, responsible for initializing and running the module.

    • The data instance implements a MPLAB Harmony TCP/IP stack MAC driver module instance, driven by the MPLAB Harmony TCP/IP stack.

      The following set of functions provide abstracted control plane functionality to the application:

      • BSS find/scanning and network discovery
      • Connecting or disconnecting to an AP (STA mode)
      • Enabling, disabling, and configuring the AP (soft-AP mode)
      • APIs providing current association information
      • Configuring authentication (security) types
      • Power-saving functionality (IEEE 802.11 power-save API)
      • Configuring regulatory regions
      • Implementing vendor-specific information elements in beacons