Marvell on mission to deliver new consumer era -- the 'Always-On Lifestyle'

LAS VEGAS, USA: Marvell, a leader in integrated silicon solutions, will launch a spectrum of new products aimed at fostering the "always-on lifestyle" at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week.

As one of the world's largest chipmakers, Marvell will showcase its complete product platforms for always-on, always-connected devices, including video, data, voice and storage, mobile computing, intelligent displays, information appliances, gaming, entertainment, and telephony for delivery of anytime, anywhere and any size live digital content and services.

Importantly, it will demonstrate new products from the ARMADA family of processors, including a 2 GHz processor that achieves PC-class performance at a fraction of the power consumption -- a key milestone for the next wave of mobile computing.

"We're moving beyond the limits of the Internet age to bring consumers something new: the always-on lifestyle - anytime, anywhere and any size. Marvell's mission is to pioneer always-on living by giving consumers the power to experience rich live digital content -- voice, data, video, photos, music and news -- where ever they want it, whenever they want it and in the format they want it in," said Ms. Weili Dai, Marvell's Co-founder and Vice President and General Manager of Marvell Semiconductor's Consumer and Computing Business Unit.

"As one of the world's most innovative chipmakers, Marvell offers an extensive portfolio of total solutions that enable our customers to offer consumers greater choice in anytime, anywhere, any size live content delivery at mass consumer market price points."

Marvell's diverse solutions and systems-on-a-chips (SoCs) are designed to give consumers more choice, horsepower, seamless connectivity, and new visual and immersive entertainment experiences.

"The always-on consumer creates, shares, and enjoys content from connected digital devices and personal resources," said Tim Bajarin, Principal Analyst with Creative Strategies. "There's a growing demand for smarter solutions, mobile connectivity, and instant access to personal live digital content anywhere and anytime. Movers and shakers like Marvell will impact the way people consume live digital content and think about the always-on lifestyle."

Marvell's silicon solutions offer global manufacturers highly scalable platforms that translate into measurable competitive advantages including improved performance, better consumer experiences, and greater value across a broad array of form factors and price points.

Marvell's new silicon platforms for the Always-on Lifestyle
Mobile Media On-Demand: Marvell will reveal its new game-changing media technology that gives consumers HD-quality video, 3D graphics, and live and on demand content in an array of new portable formats.

Surpassing the limitations of the PC world, Marvell's new technology is targeted at next-generation portable media players, smartphones, Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), eReaders, and other personal information appliances. Powered by the new Marvell ARMADA 610 application processor, featuring award-winning Qdeo technology, the platform combines a gigahertz-class ARM v7-compatible CPU core with integrated 1080p full HD encode and decode, and hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to deliver high performance applications and multimedia in small form factors with low power consumption.

Personal MicroServers: Small as a deck of playing cards, Marvell's Plug Computer 3.0 is a super-powerful microserver designed for the home and small office. Small enough to plug directly into a wall socket and designed to draw so little power that it can be left on all the time, Marvell's Plug Computer 3.0 allows consumers to better manage their growing media files, photo albums, and video libraries.

New applications include management of medical and financial records as well as a command post for the smart home -- allowing for remote management of lights, thermostats, and irrigation systems. Featuring an ARMADA 300 processor with an embedded 2 GHz CPU core, the Plug Computer 3.0 is designed to make high-performance, always on, always connected, and environmentally-friendly computing readily available for developers and end-users. With advanced technologies, Marvell has incorporated several new features including a built-in hard drive and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth options to further turbo charge developers' access points.

Personal Mobile HotSpots: Marvell will demonstrate the Mobile Hotspot, a groundbreaking technology that is designed to transform any consumer electronic device with an internet connection into a wireless hotspot. Why search for a Wi-Fi hotspot when you can simply be one? With the Marvell Mobile Hotspot, devices such as smartphones, digital cameras, personal media players, and personal navigation devices can now operate as full featured Wi-Fi access points.

In addition, Marvell will also showcase its new family of wireless devices delivering best-in-class multifunction radios -- built from the ground up to outperform all standalone options for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM, and GPS products across metrics including performance, power and size, the new wireless devices enable manufacturers to create more reliable, affordable, thinner, and sexier mobile products.

Quadcore Chip Breakthrough: Marvell will again raise the technology bar for the entire chip industry with a rare viewing of its new "four core" processor aimed at delivering mind-blowing interactive and multimedia consumer experiences. Still in stealth mode showings, this ultra-powerful media engine offers an early glimpse at the future of immersive interactive and multimedia experiences.

Smart Display Dongles: Marvell will demonstrate a new array of small form factor devices that give consumers ultimate control over their entertainment experiences. With various display outputs, such as HDMI, VGA, DVI, and Video Out, smart dongles enable consumers to access content from one place -- the Internet or mobile handsets, for example, and display it on their living room TV screens.

The Smart Display Dongle is the link to anytime, anywhere, any size live media delivery. In one example, Marvell will demonstrate special applications which enable a handset user interface to be enhanced and upscaled, via award-winning Qdeo technology, to a large digital TV by direct connect Wi-Fi 802.11n.

Revolutionizing the Always-Connected Digital Lifestyle Experience: Marvell continues to revolutionize digital entertainment with new solutions featuring Marvell's award-winning Qdeo video technology, recently recognized as "2009's most important Semiconductor Innovation" by IMS Research.

At CES, Marvell will showcase the ARMADA 1000 HD Media SoC that was awarded "Best HD Media Processor" by Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity. This HD Media SoC is focused on enabling next-generation of connected full-HD consumer devices and supports Blu-ray 3D specifications. In addition, Marvell will show its Hybrid Silicon Tuner with integrated Clear RF technology that dramatically improves the quality of both analog and digital TV signals.

New Storage Solutions: Reinforcing Marvell's leadership in the global storage market, the company will showcase new breakthroughs in advanced data protection, and interoperability for next generation consumer devices. Marvell will unveil its latest storage solution, embedded MMC (eMMC).

Marvell combined its expertise for solid state drive (SSD) with communication solutions to offer eMMC, a smaller form of SSD, dedicated to handheld devices. eMMC features performance, reliability, and security functions that manufacturers require for embedded applications.