Category: Marvell

Marvell Kinoma, virtual platform for developing applications

Posted by – February 20, 2011

Kinoma play is showcased on Android devices, it’s running all the apps on pure ARM processor with no need for graphics acceleration, it can come with more than 50 applications built in.

Sub-$200 4.3″ capacitive Android Smartphone

Posted by – February 15, 2011

Yuhua Teltech released this Marvell powered Android Smartphone they call the Touchstone. It’s basically like one of those HTC HD, Droid X, except it costs less than $200 instead of the $500+ that the big brands such as HTC and Motorola are selling those form factors for. It runs on the Marvell PXA935 processor (also known as Tavor P65), same as in the Dual SIM clam-shell Dion MID from Shenzhen ACT that I filmed at CES and which Yuhua Teltech is also manufacturing as well. This device has been sold in China, India and some other emerging markets for 6 months already, Yuhua Teltech wants to bring this device to the European and US market, and they are announcing their next generation Gemstone design which will have a faster Marvell processor and dual-sim support.

Marvell Mobilize

Posted by – January 18, 2011

Uses a 10.1″ resistive screen, can be manufactured for below $199 using the Marvell 166 processor. Marvell is working on user interface layers on top of Android suitable for Tablets to be used in education leading the way towards the OLPC XO-3 Tablet to be based on the faster Armada 610 processor.

Natural Sound Electronics Android Tablets

Posted by – January 15, 2011

Natural Sound Electronics presents a 9″ Telechips ARM11 Android Tablet for $125 in bulk excluding flash memory cost, 7″ capacitive Marvell with Android 2.2 for $100 in bulk.

GreatWall M7250, $125 Android Tablet

Posted by – January 14, 2011

China GreatWall Computer Shenzhen releases this Marvell 166 ARM11 based 7 Android tablet, it costs $125 in bulk, they provide Capacitive or Resistive model, as well as offer a 3G built-in option for $45 extra.

OLPC XO-1.75, ARM Powered OLPC XO Laptop is faster than x86!

Posted by – January 9, 2011

OLPC CTO Edward J. McNierney gives us an overview of the ARM Marvell Armada 610 version of OLPC XO Laptop, XO 1.75, to be released soon, being optimized now in Taiwan, it provides for a sub 2 Watt One Laptop Per Child XO Laptop. One Laptop Per Child created the Netbook market, now they will push the PC/Laptop industry towards ARM support for lower power consumption and lower prices through increased industry competition and optimized SoC designs. The $100 Laptop is nearer. Marvell’s 610 is now one of the ARM SoC platforms that is now powerful enough to power a full desktop/laptop system.

OLPC XO-1.75 One Laptop Per Child ARM Powered Laptop OLPC XO ARM Laptop

Shenzhen ACT 4.8″ capacitive Marvel PXA935 clamshell Android

Posted by – January 8, 2011

Dual SIM Card, Android 2.2 compatible, based on the Marvell PXA935 processor, with a nice 4.8″ capacitive screen, removable battery. It’s to be sold for about $200 (probably in bulk).

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netbooknews.com: Asus Eee Note EA800 Unboxing

Posted by – December 13, 2010
Category: E-readers, Marvell

Also see my interview with the product manager at Computex here. Asus has chosen to release this reflective based grayscale 8″ wacom touch LCD based e-reader. It has a user interface based on Qt and embedded Linux on a Marvell processor.

This video was released at: netbooknews.com

Dr. Sehat Sutardja Marvell CEO keynote at ARM Techcon 2010

Posted by – November 18, 2010

Dr. Sehat Sutardja, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Marvell, talks about the ARM industry, how he decided to bet on ARM Technology when he founded Marvell about 15 years ago. How he sees performance of ARM Processors increase to levels that support PC/Desktop applications. I will link to the full length keynote video once I find the link. Please post the video link in the comments if you find it.

Jensen Tjeng keynote at ARM Techcon 2010

Posted by – November 18, 2010

Introduced by Simon Segars, as the very first keynote speech of the ARM Techcon 2010, is Jensen Tjeng, Director of Engineering in Processor Design, Marvell. This is just short parts of the keynote, I will link to the full length keynote video once I find it online. Please post in the comments if you know where to find it. It might not have been posted yet.

Revo 1 by Revolution Robotics Java Standard Edition based robot

Posted by – November 13, 2010

This is a robot system based on the Marvell Armada plug computer system. Find out more at http://revolution-robotics.com

Marvell Armada XP Quad-core ARM Powered Servers

Posted by – November 11, 2010

A discussion with Marvell about their ARM Powered Servers which could take over the whole cloud computing servers market.

Marvell Armada 100 and 600 for Tablets

Posted by – November 11, 2010

Marvell shows the Armada 100 and Armada 600, explains the differences in price, performance, target markets. Also shows off the Marvell 168 powered Gplug D, the first Guruplug with a HDMI output. The big question I have is which platform will OLPC choose to use for the OLPC XO-3 tablet platform, if it will be one of these or if the timing allows for the even newer and more powerful Marvell Armada 628 Tri-Core processor to be used.

OLPC XO-3 unbreakable Pixel Qi to show after CES

Posted by – November 3, 2010

OLPC is working to design an unbreakable screen and thus may not have the XO-3 prototypes ready to show at CES in January. Marvell and its partners will likely have lots of tablets to show by then though. An unbreakable and sunlight readable Pixel Qi screen is an important feature of the XO-3 to make it a viable option for developing countries, as well as its abilities to be used for full productivity and for fast text input.

Source: pcworld.com

newgadgets.de: Hanvon Android tablet at Frankfurt Book Fair

Posted by – October 6, 2010
Category: Tablets, Marvell, Android

Here’s a new Marvell powered Android 1.6 tablet design presented by Hanvon at the Frankfurt Book Fair:

This video was released at: newgadgets.de

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OLPC to turn tablets into productive tools for learning with Marvell’s $5.6 Million grant

Posted by – October 4, 2010

Marvell has supported OLPC since the beginning, they have thus far provided the WiFi Meshing modules on XO-1 and XO-1.5. Marvell co-invested with Google, News Corp, Novell and the others into the founding of OLPC to bring about the XO-1 which forced Intel and the whole laptop industry to respond with the 100 Million netbooks that have been sold in the last 3 years to limit the effects of OLPC’s potential disruption of the laptop market. Marvell and OLPC have now signed an agreement in which OLPC is to develop XO-3 Tablet(s) based on one of Marvell’s ARM System On Chip processor solutions.

Marvell can justify the investment as an R&D investment in which everything OLPC develops, as all OLPC hardware designs are open source, can freely be used by Marvell’s manufacturing OEM partners to also release commercial tablet products based on these technologies.

OLPC will use these funds to develop the Tablet that can be used for productivity, for constructionist learning as Nicholas Negroponte said at the Mobilize 2010 conference last week:

How do you make tablets a constructionist medium? A medium where you make things, you don’t just consume them. Cause if it’s about kids and learning, it’s not like you feed a goose grain to make the foie gras. You have to make it for kids to use it, to make, to communicate. Whether it’s music, whether it’s text or whether it’s to write computer programs. And it has to be so low power, when it runs out of power you just shake it a little bit and it continues.

These are the challenges that OLPC will work on to implement in XO-3 before the target 2012 $75 release:

XO-3 Challenges

Why should children use tablets instead of laptops?

The future of OLPC: it’s a notepad.

notepad

The notepad is the oldest tool used by children in the class room. Imagine adding full online and offline interactivity to the notepad. Imagine a magic notepad that can display every page from every book, every image and every video ever filmed. To display low bitrate tutorial videos that work even in black and white mode like the ones of the Khan Academy, even have them be interactive and provided as learning games. The student can annotate all books, take notes and share them. The tablet is not only lighter and could be designed for cheaper, it also is the more usable form factor as an e-reader for reading all books ever written in the world. As Nicholas Negroponte says:

There is no way to justify a paper book. If you’d want to send 10 thousand physical books, you’d have to take every 747 out of service around the planet just to move them from wherever they are being manufactured. Physical books are a luxury.

I wonder if 7″ or 10.1″ Pixel Qi will be used, or both. The 7″ size may be optimal for it to be as light, cheap and durable as possible, it might be better for children to read books on a 7″ form factor than a 10.1″ one. For productivity, I think it should support both touch screen and some cheap $2 USB keyboards/mouse and use its built-in kick-stand. Children can easily carry a $2 keyboard/mouse when they need to be most productive. Maybe a thin keyboard to double as screen protector and which can be clipped onto the back of the device when in tablet/e-reader mode could be a nice design feature, although the screen needs to be unbreakable enough for children not to need worry about carrying the tablet without a screen protector.

For software, I think that OLPC should work with Google and the emerging tablet industry to customize Android for education. Maybe add Sugar apps support on top of Android OS as a secondary app platform “module layer” on top of Android. Basically, Sugar could be a custom UI layer on top of Android for the XO-3 tablet.

OLPC receives $5.6 Million grant from Marvell to develop XO-3 Tablet for education

Posted by – October 4, 2010

Marvell is giving $5.6 Million to OLPC to fund the development of the XO-3 Tablet, with bendable plastic Pixel Qi screen and education-centric customized software, that finalized XO-3 will be ready by 2012 for distribution to schools at a target $75 bill of materials and manufacturing each. OLPC and Marvell will have an early demonstration tablet prototype running Android to show in January at the next CES.

I think that they should definitely go for customizing Android for education. Maybe add Sugar apps support on top of Android OS as a second app platform. I wonder if 7″ or 10.1″ Pixel Qi will be used, or both. For productivity, I think it should support both touch screen and some cheap $2 USB keyboards/mouse and a kick-stand.

Source: xconomy.com

netbooknews.com: Malata T9000 Laptop for education runs on Marvell 166 ARM processor

Posted by – October 1, 2010
Category: Laptops, Marvell

It is being said in this video that this ARM Powered laptop is customized with Linux software for education in China and comes with built-in SIM card reader for wireless Internet access.

Here are some specifications of the Armada 166 processor according to Marvell.com:

Attributes ARMADA166
Frequency (MHz) 800
Core Sheeva PJ1 w/WMMX2
ISA ARMv5/XScale
L1 Caches 32KB/32KB
L2 Cache 128KB
Memory LP-DDR 200 MHz DDR2 400 MHz (DDR2-800) x16
LCD Controller Up to WUXGA
Graphics 2D/Scaler
Video Up to D1 using WMMX2
Additional Blocks QdeoTM ICR
Key Peripherals FE, 5:1 Card Reader, USB, EPD Ctrl (166E)
Process, Package 55nm, BGA
Application E-Book

Source: netbooknews.com
Found via: engadget.com

Marvell Armada 628, 1.5 GHz Tri-Core Processor

Posted by – September 24, 2010

Marvell Technology Group
Image via Wikipedia

Marvell is unveiling this amazing new processor for smart phones and tablets, the Marvell Armada 628 has:

dual stream 1080p 3D video and 3D graphics performance with quad unified shaders for 200 million triangles per second delivered on ultra-low-power, long battery life smartphones and tablets

1080p dual stream 3D video applications (30 FPS, multi-format)

By supporting 1080p 3D at 30 FPS, does that mean normal non-3D 1080p at 60fps High Profile H264 also can be played back flawlessly?

The new ARMADA 628 tri-core processor incorporates a number of advanced processing and power management features. The tri-core design integrates two high performance symmetric multiprocessing cores and a third core optimized for ultra low-power. The third core is designed to support routine user tasks and acts as a system management processor to monitor and dynamically scale power and performance. The tri-core architecture provides superior performance and lower power over dual-core designs while maintaining industry compatibility and leadership — ensuring a richer, faster and smoother experience than any other ARM-based processor available today.

That sounds like Marvell is awesomely at work using its ARM Architecture licence, customizing their processors as much as they can to design those processors how they think is best with their expertise and 5000 employees.

The ARMADA 628 is also designed to be the first mobile CPU to provide high-speed USB 3.0 connectivity, which offers 10x faster performance than USB 2.0.

Hmm nice, I can’t wait to be able to transfer those terrabytes of data from one hard drive to the other faster that tens of hours.

The ARMADA 628 is based on a Marvell-designed ARM v7 MP compatible CPU offering 1.5 GHz performance. It offers support to use LP-DDR2 or DDR3 memory up to 533 MHz, a highly flexible display controller capable of driving four simultaneous displays at up t o 2K x 2K resolution, and a highly robust security subsystem that includes a secure execution processor. An integrated 3D engine renders 200 million triangles per second for an immersive game play experience and a multi-format video engine supports dual stream 1080p video for a true 3D visual experience. In addition, the ARMADA 628 supports DirectX, Open GL ES 2.0, and Open VG 1.1 – ensuring complete compatibility with the most hotly anticipated mobile game titles. ARMADA 628 supports RIM OS, Android™, Linux, Windows Mobile, and full Adobe Flash.

Key Features

World’s first “tri-core” application processor
Up to 1.5 GHz for the two main cores and 624 MHz for the third low power core
“Heterogeneous multiprocessing” with “hardware-based Cache Coherence”
1 MB System Level 2 Cache

I am really looking forward to see some devices using this new processor.

Perhaps now this new Marvell 528 processor generation (as I expect could be the numbering of the Desktop/Laptop derivative of the 628) will be fast enough as well to power Desktop and Notebook class devices like these ones I filmed:
http://138.2.152.197/2010/01/18/marvell-slim-desktop-solution-ebox-based-on-the-marvell-armada-510-processor/
http://138.2.152.197/2010/01/06/marvell-armada-510-based-12-1-arm-powered-laptop/

Will Marvell use 628 in the upcoming OLPC XO-3 low cost low power tablet for education project?

Source: marvell.com
Found via: techmeme.com

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ZTE V7 4″ Maemo device

Posted by – June 4, 2010

A new design for a 4″ 800×480, Marvell PXA310 based Maemo Linux device, with the integrated thumb keyboard below the screen. Built-in camera for video-conferencing and GPS.