This section details the partitioning of the networking stack and the IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi® stack across the host Microcontroller Unit (MCU) and nRF7000.
This description is based on the Zephyr™ networking stack and an nRF9160 host MCU. However, the partitioning applies equally to other operating systems and host MCUs supporting a compatible Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI)/Quad Serial Peripheral Interface (QSPI).
Figure 1. Network stack architecture
The Wi-Fi driver executes on the host MCU (for example, nRF9160) and communicates with the MAC layer on nRF7000 through SPI.