Redpine Signals / Silicon Labs RS9113 and RS9116 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chipsets
A family of low-power 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth combo chips originally designed by Redpine Signals (acquired by Silicon Labs in 2020), commonly found in embedded and industrial IoT devices over SDIO and USB. The RS9116 in particular is widely used in gateways, medical devices, and battery-powered industrial gear that need a Linux host driver for hosted-mode Wi-Fi.
recommendation
It should stay in the kernel because Silicon Labs still actively sells the RS9116 with production guaranteed through at least December 2032, and the driver is receiving real bug fixes upstream as recently as April 2026, including security fixes for SDIO RX-path issues and malformed-firmware handling. No other kernel driver covers this vendor's firmware interface, so users of these embedded radios depend on it.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
Upstream activity is current in 2026; the driver received a v3 bug-fix patch for an SDIO RX-path OOB read on 2026-04-21.
- lore.kernel.org
The driver is still getting non-mechanical fixes in 2026, including a fix for an infinite loop triggered by malformed firmware packets.
- silabs.com
Silicon Labs still marketed RS9116 parts and states full production of RS9116W-SB00-QMS is expected until at least December 2032, so hardware was still sold new in 2025.
- silabs.com
Silicon Labs lists RS9116 hosted-mode Wi-Fi/Bluetooth SoCs with Linux host-driver support, indicating continuing embedded/industrial deployment relevance.
- git.kernel.org
Kernel Kconfig identifies this directory as the Redpine Signals 91x WLAN driver family.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local `exec_command` on the tree showed Redpine/Silabs RSI 91x support and RS9113/RS9116 identifiers in Kconfig/headers. `lore_activity` on `drivers/net/wireless/rsi/rsi_91x_main.c` returned multiple April 2026 bug-fix patches with lore URLs, which is strong evidence against deprecation/removal. `lore_file_timeline` on the directory returned no hits, likely a directory-path coverage blind spot rather than inactivity. Web search returned official Silicon Labs RS9116 product pages showing ongoing sale/lifecycle through at least December 2032. No natural upstream replacement driver covers the same vendor-specific firmware interface, so the correct disposition is keep.