In order to improve the seismic performance of conventional infilled masonry wall,an innovative configuration named damped infilled wall/wallboard(DIW)was proposed by introducing the principle of viscoelastic damper. DIW has a simple construction,explicit working mechanism and independent intellectual property right. In this paper,the configuration and working mechanism of DIW was introduced. The material suitable for damping layer construction and its corresponding hysteretic performance were given. Seismic performance tests were carried out on DIW unit as well as plane frame structures with DIW. The in-plane working mechanism that the shear hysteretic deformation which is casued by relative movement between adjacent subpanel of DIW dissipates the input seismic energy was revealed. The double bracing macro-modelling method was proposed. The proposed model was used in the time-history analysis of a 3D frame structure with DIW. Results show that DIW is able to significantly reduce the influence on the dynamic characteristic and seismic performance of the main structures,and to protect the wall from suffering damages through decreasing the stiffness effect of wall/wallboard on structure. Out-of-plane performance of DIW was also studied by tests. The results reveal that the out-of-plane mechanism is the arching mechanism and the failure mode is fourhinge arching.The problems and directions that need to be further studied were given.