Disassembling USB Wireless Network Card: A Classic Circuit Design

Many desktop computers do not have wireless network cards and can only connect via Ethernet.

To use WiFi, you can simply plug in a USB wireless network card, which is convenient:

Disassembling USB Wireless Network Card: A Classic Circuit Design

The USB wireless network card is very compact, leading to curiosity about how the circuit board fits inside:

Next, we will disassemble a model from a certain manufacturer:

Another angle:

By prying open the part covered in plastic, we see a light blue antenna:

The entire circuit board has been removed, revealing a small and compact circuit board, which is very beautiful:

The USB wireless network card uses a solution from REALTEK semiconductor, with the chip model being RTL8188CUS:

A close-up detail of the ceramic antenna, which is primarily used for its small size:

The back side of the circuit board is shown below.

There is a black chip packaged in SOT23-5, which is a power chip with five pins, implementing the function of converting 5V to 3.3V:

Removing the key components, the following are from left to right, top to bottom:

1. Blue ceramic antenna;

2. Golden crystal oscillator;

3. Black main chip RTL8188CUS;

5. 5V to 3.3V power chip.

The internal circuit of the main chip, which was damaged during disassembly:

The microscopic world of circuits is truly beautiful:

Opening the crystal oscillator cover to see what’s inside:

Comparing with a USB WiFi module made with the same chip solution: (and the girl’s unmanicured hand)

This module is also compact, but relatively larger due to the use of a PCB antenna:

Labeling the key components:

The REALTEK RTL8188 software and hardware solution is mature and has been in mass production for many years, but it is uncertain whether it remains a competitive solution today.

This article mainly showcases beautiful images; if you want to make one yourself, just ask the chip distributor for the schematic and reference design materials, it’s very simple.

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