Silicon Labs WF200/WFM200 Wi-Fi transceivers
A family of low-power 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi transceiver chips and modules from Silicon Labs (WF200, WFM200, and the WGM160P module) that connect to a host processor over SPI or SDIO. They are aimed at industrial and embedded designs — smart meters, building automation, medical devices — rather than PCs or phones, and have been shipping since around 2018.
recommendation
It should stay because the hardware is still sold new in 2025-2026 (DigiKey lists the WF200SD as active and in stock), Silicon Labs continues to publish current documentation tying its FMAC driver to the WF200, WFM200, and WGM160P parts, and the kernel code itself received a substantive maintenance change in wireless-next as recently as November 2025. Deployment is niche — aimed at industrial and embedded designs rather than consumer laptops — but the family is clearly still alive upstream and in the supply chain.
repository signals
sources
- kernel.googlesource.com
Wireless-next carried a wfx-specific change committed on 2025-11-20 ('wifi: wfx: add WQ_PERCPU to alloc_workqueue users'), showing recent upstream maintenance.
- lore.kernel.org
Lore link referenced from the 2025 wireless-next wfx commit; supports that the driver is still part of active upstream discussion rather than removal.
- docs.silabs.com
Silicon Labs still publishes current WF200/WFM200 documentation and explicitly ties the Wi-Fi FMAC driver to WF200, WFM200, and WGM160P devices.
- digikey.com
WF200SD was listed by DigiKey in 2026 as Part Status 'Active' with stock, indicating ongoing new-hardware availability.
- digikey.com
Some WF200 variants are marked 'Not For New Designs', suggesting the family is niche/maturing rather than broadly growing.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local inspection via `rg` confirmed this is a real Linux mac80211 driver with SDIO/SPI buses and MODULE_DESCRIPTION for WF200. Upstream activity was checked first with local `git log` plus web-opened wireless-next commit pages; the most recent substantive wfx touch is in late 2025, and I found no web-search evidence of an active lore removal series. Deployment evidence came from web search results: Silicon Labs still documents the family, and DigiKey still lists at least one WF200 SKU as Active/in stock in 2026, though other SKUs are NFND. That points to continued but specialized industrial/embedded use, so keep rather than deprecate/remove.