Marvell, whose 3G and 4G solutions are widely deployed in 3G and 4G networks worldwide, announced an end-to-end silicon platform for 5G infrastructure.
Whereas initial deployments of 5G NR have been dominated by FPGA-based solutions, Marvell said its 5G solution encompasses baseband DSPs, Arm multi-core SoCs, purpose-built hardware accelerators, Ethernet connectivity engines and system-level security solutions.
Marvell's 5G NR Platform includes:
- Radio Access SoCs: The OCTEON Fusion-M product line is optimized for cost/power and programmable with a 3GPP protocol stack split and massive MIMO capabilities. Marvell's SoCs set the performance benchmark for both LTE-A and 5G NR, with multiple deployments through key industry partners.
- Transport/EPC Core Processors: Multi-core OCTEON processors that are optimized to address the most demanding use cases of 5G NR. Marvell's scalable data-plane acceleration makes its embedded processors ideal for 5G Core/EPC applications at the heart of the network as well. Marvell uniquely offers a single unified architecture for both transport and EPC core.
- Ethernet Networking: switches and PHYs for carrier infrastructure. Marvell Prestera switches contain hierarchical traffic management for mobile infrastructure. In addition, Marvell's differentiated switching solutions allow advanced flow identification and access control to enable user-level security.
- Wi-Fi Connectivity: Marvell is ramping high volume production of 8x8 and 4x4 Wi-Fi 6 solutions. The 802.11ax engines include full MU-MIMO and OFDMA uplink and downlink, multi-gigabit peak speeds, precision location, cloud management, best-in-class beamforming and integrated Bluetooth 5 technology.
- ThunderX2 Arm-based Server: Marvell has introduced workload optimized ThunderX2 server processors to augment and enhance its 5G portfolio.
"Marvell is uniquely empowering our network infrastructure customer base to accelerate their 5G systems via our highly integrated solutions," said Raghib Hussain, chief strategy officer and executive vice president of the Network and Processors Group at Marvell Semiconductor, Inc. "Specifically, our 5G Ready portfolio is an order of magnitude better in terms of performance, power efficiency and overall implementation cost versus unoptimized field programmable pre-5G architectures. In short, the depth and breadth of Marvell's technology offers OEMs the flexibility to tailor their infrastructure solutions to specific carriers and global end markets."
