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New chips target sub-$100 smartphones
2010-02-11 Article Rating:  / 0
[Updated, Feb. 12] -- Marvell announced the Pantheon 910 and 920, two new chips it says will drive smartphone pricing below $100. The company also launched the Armada 618, a new member of its ARMv7-based processor family that's being aimed at higher-end devices.
 According to Marvell, its new Pantheon 910 (right) and 920 will push smartphone pricing down to $100 or below. The chips, which were only briefly detailed in today's announcement, will include ARM application processors running at or above 800MHz, plus modem and GPU (graphics processing unit) functionality, the company says.
Marvell says the Pantheon devices will provide 720p video playback and support screens with resolutions up to 800 x 480 pixels. Their GPUs will be DirectX- and Open GL ES 2.0-compliant, and operating system support will include, but not be limited to, Android and Windows Mobile, the company adds.
A new chip for higher-end phones Marvell announced four "Armada" processor families last October, two of which, the 500 series and 600 series, are based on ARMv7 cores. The inaugural member of the latter family was said to be the Armada 610, targeting MIDs, handheld multimedia devices, and point-of-sale terminals.Unveiling the Armada 618 yesterday, Marvell did little to distinguish its new product from the previously announced 610, though support of only LP-DDR1 and LP-DDR2 memory was mentioned, whereas the 610 was said to support DDR3 RAM too. Both chips offer a clock speed of 1GHz, a display controller that offers resolutions up to 2000 x 2000 pixels, and an integral 3D accelerator, Marvell says. According to Marvell, the 12 x 12mm Armada 618 is capable of supporting four simultaneous displays and 1080p video decode/encode, also including a "highly robust security subsystem" that includes a secure execution processor. The chip's 3D graphics engine supports DirectX, Open GL ES 2.0, and Open VG 1.1, rendering up to 45 million triangles per second, the company adds. Dai stated, "Featuring a gigahertz CPU, 1080p full-HD video, 3D graphics, the industry's fastest LP-DDR, and optimized power for longer battery life, Marvell's Armada 618 application processor represents a dramatic leap forward in high-end, multimedia smartphones." Background
Because Marvell is not only an ARM processor licensee, but also an architecture licensee, it has the right to take ARM-designed cores and use it in SoCs of its own devising. This is precisely what the chipmaker did last year when it announced the Armada product families, employing its own, unique Sheeva designs. Marvell's Sheeva PJ1 architecture is based on the ARMv5 instruction set, and is used in the single-core Armada 100 family and dual-core Armada 1000 family. The company's Sheeva PJ4 architecture is based on the ARMv7 instruction set (employed in the ARM Cortex-A8 core), and is used in the Armada 500 and 600 families. Instead of employing ARM's Neon SIMD (single instruction multiple data) instruction set, the Armada products incorporate Wireless MMX2 technology, inherited from Intel when Marvell acquired the latter's XScale-based SoCs in 2006. The Armada SoCs additionally include Marvell's Odeo video processing technologies and can also accelerate Adobe's Flash technology, the company says. All Armada SoCs are manufactured using TSMC's 55nm fabrication process. The 100, 500, and 1000 series are created using a mainstream G process, whereas the 600 series is reportedly manufactured using a low-power LP process. A video demonstrating the Armada 610 Source: Marvell (click to play) Availability According to Marvell, the Pantheon 910, Pantheon 920, and Armada 618 are sampling now. They'll be demonstrated at the Marvell booth (Courtyard 18) at next week's Mobile World Congress, the company adds.Related stories:
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Weili Dai (right), a Marvell co-founder who is also the vice president and general manager of its consumer and computing business unit, stated, "The new generation of platforms we are shipping today offer higher performance and greater integration of onboard functionality. This lowers the manufacturing costs and makes the mass market $99 smartphone very real." 
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