Marvell announces PXA1088 quad-core SoC for globetrotting phones and tablets
Marvell made waves last year with its 802.11acwireless chips, but the company's looking to make a splash in 2013 with a new quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 SoC. Called the PXA1088, the new silicon's calling card -- other than those four CPU cores -- is its ability to beam 3G data to mobile devices anywhere in the world thanks to auto-roaming and compatibility with 21Mbps HSPA+, TD-HSPA+, EDGE, and WCDMA networks. In addition to those cellular radios, it also has an Avastar 88W8777 chip that brings WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and FM radio, plus it has a GPS and GLONASS location processor on board.
Worldwide connectivity isn't the PXA1088's only trick, either. It's got some serious video chops thanks to a hardware 1080p encoder and decoder, and a GPU from Vivante compliant with OpenGL ES 2.0 and 1.1 as well as OpenVG 1.1. Can't wait to get your grubby mitts on a phone packing Marvell's latest? The company tells us that several well-known OEMs will be rolling out devices with the PXA1088 in the first half of the year. Of course, we're hoping to see a few of them ourselves next week at Mobile World Congress, so stay tuned.
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Marvell Announces Industry's Most Advanced Single-chip Quad-core World Phone Processor to Power High-performance, Smartphones and Tablets with Worldwide Automatic Roaming on 3G Networks
Expecting commercial device production in 2013
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (Feb. 19, 2013) – Marvell (Nasdaq: MRVL) today announced the Marvell® PXA1088, a highly integrated quad-core application and communications mobile System-on-Chip (SoC) that provides high performance, low-power mobile computing; support for all global broadband standards, enabling seamless global roaming; and the latest wireless connectivity technology. Marvell's PXA1088 is the industry's most advanced single-chip solution to feature a quad-core processor with support for 3G field-proven cellular modems including High Speed Packet Access Plus (HSPA+), Time division High Speed Packet Access Plus (TD-HSPA+) and Enhanced Data for GSM Environment (EDGE).
"Marvell is proud to deliver our single-chip quad-core world-mode mobile platform. This is a testament of our great technology innovation capabilities and engineering prowess to bring our unified platform from dual-core to quad-core to the smart device marketplace with multi-mode capabilities and automatic roaming on 3G networks around the world. We're very excited that global OEM/ODM partners have embraced and committed to this platform," said Weili Dai, Co-Founder of Marvell. "I believe our industry leading single-chip platform will drive mass market adoption of high-quality, high-performance, very affordable smartphone and tablet solutions worldwide to enrich people's connected lifestyle."
The Marvell PXA1088 solution incorporates the performance of a quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 with Marvell's mature and proven WCDMA and TD-SCDMA modem technology to provide a low-cost 3G platform for both smartphones and tablets. The advanced application processor technology of the PXA1088 enables a breakthrough end user experience for multimedia and gaming applications with universal connectivity. Marvell's complete mobile platform solution includes the Avastar® 88W8777 WLAN + Bluetooth 4.0 + FM single-chip SoC and the L2000 GNSS Hybrid Location Processor, and an integrated power management and audio codec IC.
Marvell's PXA1088 is backward pin-to-pin compatible with its dual-core single-chip Unified 3G Platform, the PXA988/PXA986, enabling device partners to upgrade their next-generation mobile devices to quad-core without additional design cost.
Marvell will showcase the PXA1088 alongside a range of mobile devices powering the Connected Lifestyle at booth 6C44 (in Hall 6) at Mobile World Congress, February 25-28, at the Fira Gran Via in Barcelona.
Additional PXA1088 Features:
• Support for advanced WCDMA Release 7, TD-SCDMA HSPA+ Release 8, and class 12 EDGE
• 3G protocol stack certified on all major carrier networks and validated via extensive IOT, GCF and field trail testing
• Support for popular full-feature operating systems and industry-standard development tools
• Multi-radio platform capabilities with WLAN/Bluetooth solutions
• Integrated power management and audio Codec IC
• High-performance graphics engine for OpenGL ES 2.0 and 1.1, as well as OpenVG 1.1
• Hardware 1080p decoder and 1080p encoder
• 12mm x 12mm JEDEC standard package-on-package stacked memory option or discrete package option
• Supports the latest Android OS
Currently, the PXA1088 platform is sampling with leading global customers. Products based on this platform are expected to be commercially available in 2013.
