Marvell becomes promoter member of Serial Port Memory Technology (SPMT) Consortium

SUNNYVALE, USA: SPMT, LLC, the entity responsible for administering the SPMT Consortium and licensing the SPMT (Serial Port Memory Technology) specification, announced that Marvell, a leader in integrated silicon solutions, has joined the Consortium as a promoter member.

The other SPMT promoter members are ARM, Hynix Semiconductor, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics and Silicon Image. Promoters are responsible for developing the SPMT memory interface specification for broad market adoption as an industry standard.

The Consortium also announced a specification enhancement that will enable the design of SPMT memory with SerialSwitch technology, the industry’s first standard solution that combines the low power of existing parallel memories with the high-performance capabilities of SPMT serial DRAM technology to deliver four times the bandwidth pin-for-pin at half the power of existing memory solutions.

“Today’s mobile DRAM technology is geared to support the bandwidth needs of single core processors. As devices evolve to integrate multi-core CPU, multi shader 3D graphic engines at multi-GigaHertz speeds, it’s clear that DRAM will be the single performance bottleneck, especially for handheld systems where power budget is a major constraint,” said Dr. Sehat Sutardja, chairman, president and chief executive officer at Marvell.

“Marvell is joining the SPMT Consortium to actively promote Serial Port Memory Technology as an industry standard and address the immediate needs of the industry. We encourage other companies active in the sector to join us in our mission.”

SPMT-enabled memory with SerialSwitch technology offers low power during power-down and low-bandwidth operations, but can switch to high-performance SPMT serial mode, boosting performance from 1.6 GB/s in parallel mode to 6.4 GB/s in serial mode. The technology is optimized for mobile and consumer electronics applications with high-bandwidth requirements like HD video, 3D action gaming, mobile projection, and more.

“Marvell’s position as an industry leader in technologies that optimize performance, power consumption and overall cost-efficiency for mobile devices and consumer electronics makes them an ideal promoter for the SPMT memory interface,” said Jim Venable, president of SPMT, LLC. “We welcome Marvell to the Consortium and are looking forward to working together to advance the SPMT standard.”

The SPMT Consortium welcomes inquiries from companies and organizations interested in joining the group.