Qualcomm/Wilocity Wil6200 60GHz 802.11ad WiGig adapters
Niche 60GHz "WiGig" 802.11ad PCIe wireless cards based on the Wilocity Sparrow chipset, which Qualcomm acquired in 2014. They appeared in a small number of laptops, docking stations, and developer boards around 2014-2018 to provide multi-gigabit short-range wireless, but never reached mainstream adoption before the industry moved on to 802.11ay and Wi-Fi 6.
recommendation
Worth keeping but documenting its niche status. The hardware is no longer sold, Qualcomm's 60GHz roadmap shifted to newer 802.11ay parts by 2018, and real-world deployments today are mostly hobbyists and researchers with surviving Wil6200 cards. However, the code is still actively maintained on linux-wireless with patches landing as recently as 2026, so there is no case for removal — just a note that this serves a small legacy and experimental user base.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
Recent upstream linux-wireless work still touches wil6210 code in 2026, so the driver is not abandoned.
- lore.kernel.org
There was wil6210-specific maintenance on linux-wireless, indicating real subsystem attention rather than a fully dead driver.
- cateee.net
LKDDb identifies CONFIG_WIL6210 as 'Wilocity 60g WiFi card wil6210 support' and maps it to Wilocity/Qualcomm PCI IDs including 1ae9:0310 and 17cb:1201.
- wireless.docs.kernel.org
Linux Wireless documentation describes wil6210 as a Qualcomm 60GHz PCIe 802.11ad card and explicitly frames it as experimental/research-oriented hardware.
- qualcomm.com
Qualcomm's later public 60GHz portfolio had moved to newer 802.11ay QCA64x1/QCA64x8 families by 2018, implying the original wil6210-era 11ad client hardware was already being superseded.
- linux-hardware.org
Community probe data shows the Wil6200 still appears in some machines, suggesting residual legacy/hobbyist deployments rather than zero use.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local tree inspection via shell (`rg`, `sed`) identified this as the Wilocity 60GHz PCIe 802.11ad driver. Lore evidence came from `mcp__lore_http__.lore_file_timeline` and `lore_activity`: `main.c` was touched repeatedly through 2026 on linux-wireless, and `pcie_bus.c` still saw wil6210-specific maintenance; I also checked for removal/deprecation signals, but found active maintenance instead of removal evidence. Web URLs were obtained with `web.search_query`/`open`: LKDDb and Linux Wireless docs establish device identity and niche/research status; Qualcomm's 2018 11ay announcement shows the vendor's public 60GHz roadmap had shifted to newer chip families; linux-hardware suggests some surviving fielded devices. That combination points to obsolete hardware with low current deployment, but enough active upstream traffic to keep the driver rather than deprecate/remove it.