Clarification of Intel's new M.2 CNVi WiFi/BT Standard.
While researching Intel's new CNVi architecture (Jefferson Peak) I stumbled across what looks like a leaked OEM only PDF document that goes in to much more detail than the CNVi product brief that was posted recently. I've attached a copy of the document to the bottom of this post. Its an interesting read if you like to keep up-to-date on hardware developments however for those after a quick understanding on the CNVi standard and how it affects us I've summarised the relevant sections below.
Summary of whats important from a Hackingtosh perspective ...
Section 2 - Product Architecture
This section of the document confirms what we already understood about CNVi from the product brief in that it off-loads much of the logic and processing involved with WiFi and BT onto a SOC embedded in the latest Intel Chipsets, essentially this means that CNVi WiFi/BT cards consist of little more than the radio and antenna amplifier components.
Section 2.1.3 - Support for RF only and Discrete Devices
This is probably the most interesting part of the document in that it states that the Intel CNVi standard includes support for both RF only (CNVi) devices and what the document refers to as discrete devices, meaning that the standard will support the use of a WiFi/BT combo card with on-board logic and processing that by-passes the System-On-Chip (SOC) CNVi processing.
Section 3 - Electrical Specification (Interface)
This section specifies that the CNVi electrical interface is based on the M.2 Key type 'E' standard ... unfortunately for us its a Intel Proprietary Hybrid version of the standard that modifies the M.2 pinout in order to support the CNVi architecture.
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My thoughts on CNVi
From this document its clear that there is no way to make a standard M.2 WiFI BT card (either key type E or A+E) work in a CNVi M.2 slot even though it's a M.2 Key type E connector and will physical fit ... thats the bad news.
Of course there are some very innovate people out there and someone may come up with an adapter board that would allow the use of a standard M.2 WiFi/BT card in a CNVi slot, however from my understanding of the specification such an adapter would have to be an active device and contain some sort of firmware to talk to the CNVi SOC, as such i think the chances of this happening are very slim as the cost of the adapter will be expensive due to its complexity and possible Intel licensing agreements.
The good news is that intel have made the CNVi standard open to 3rd party manufacturers such as Broadcom who will be able to produce CNVi compliant cards. These can either fully support the CNVi standard thus off-loading the logic and processing to the CNVi SOC, or be fully discrete cards that are very similar to what we have with cards like the DW1560 and DW1630 but presumably with some added firmware that will negotiate the by-pass of the Intel CNVi SOC. Its also possible that the CNVi by-pass my be implemented within the BIOS options of future motherboards.
If there is enough demand it's even feasible that Broadcom could produce OEM versions of cards like the DW1560 and/or DW1630 that would work with the CNVi standard although since both these cards use Broadcom chipset's that are now a few years old its more likely that they would release a card based on a newer chipset and/or architecture such as BT version 5.
The other thing to consider is that Apple is always looking for ways to make their laptop products more power efficient and slimmer so its quite possible that Apple could support CNVi in a year or two if they buy into Intel's proprietary standard.
So for now there is not much we can do ... except keep an eye on Broadcom ... my guess is they they will support the standard at some point if enough motherboard and laptop manufactures start using it, however there are no guarantees that such a device will work with OSX ... it would depend on the base architecture that Broadcom decide to use.
It also would not surprise me if some laptop manufacture's will start using soldered on CNVi devices thus locking the system into Intel the CNVi SOC .... anyone purchasing a laptop from 2018 on-wards with the intention running MacOS on it should check very carefully what the WiFI/BT solution is before parting with any money .... as always do your home work.
What to use instead of CNVi WiFi/BT
1. If you have a desktop system with a spare PCIe slot then an add-in card using the BCM943602CS chip-set is an excellent WiFi & BT-LE (4.1) solution that is cheaply priced and nativity supported by MacOS and will provide you with a hassle free solution (Use Apple's Boot Camp drivers for Windows support)
2. If your shot on spare full sized PCIe slots but you have a spare M.2 Type M slot that supports NVMe SSD's (IE: PCIe bus
not M.2 SATA ) then there are a number of manufactures producing type M to Type E (also A+E) M.2 slot adaptors that will allow the use of standard M.2 WiFi/BT cards such as DW1560 and DW1830 in a M.2 Type M slot:-
Although i have not been able to test one of these adaptors myself in theory as long as the BIOS does not try to reserve the Type M M.2 slot for a SSD (via white-list .. etc) then i see no reason why these slot adaptors would not work. However as of July 2018 these adaptors are commanding high prices considering that they are simple passive devices, but in time the cost will come down especially once other Chinese manufactures start shipping clones of them.
One thing to remember if you decide on using a M.2 A+E Key to M Key adaptor is that you most likely need to purchase longer antenna pig tails, these can be found on ebay for not much money. Generally M.2 WiFi cards use a slightly smaller antenna connector (1.5mm) compared to mini-PCIe WiFi cards (2mm). The 1.5 mm connector on a M.2 WiFi card is know as a IPEX or MHF4 connector. The standard for the external screw-in type antenna's is know as RP-SMA. So you will need to search for IPX/MHF4 to RP-SMA pig-tails that look like this :-
Try to keep these as shot as possible, long pig-tails can pick-up RF noise from the PC electronics which will degrade the WiFi/BT signal strength.
Laptop Implications ...
It's quite likely that laptop manufactures will adopt the CNVi standard quite quickly, this is going to cause issues for those who want to run MacOS on such devices. The only only hope is that Broadcom produce a WiFi/BT combo card using a supported chipset that can work in a CNVi M.2 slot as a discrete device, it will also require that laptops have a BIOS option that switches the use of the CNVi slot to a standard E type M.2 slot. Thats a big ask and will most likely never happen.
If your planning on purchasing a laptop try and find one that uses a standard M.2 WiFi/BT combo card, thats most likely going to get more and more difficult as time moved on. There is also a growing trend in laptops to solder the WiFi/BT card on to the motherboard and thus swapping the combo card is impossible.
On most CNVi enabled laptops, the only option will be to use a USB WiFi/BT dongle in conjunction with the
Null-Ethernet kext which creates a dummy Ethernet device that MacOS will see as "built-in" allowing the use of Apples on-line services.
Cheers
Jay
Update 1: Thanks to
KevinAgnes we can confirm that the M.2 Key A+E to Key M + USB Adaptors work as advertised. See
Post #358 in this thread for his post on using one successfully on a Gigabyte H370N-WiFi ITX Motherboard.
