Marvell Armada 610 mobile processor unveiled

Posted on Wednesday, January 06 2010 @ 2:00 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
Marvell introduced the Armada 610, a new mobile processor with 1080p HD encoding and decoding support. Here's the press release:
Marvell (NASDAQ: MRVL), a worldwide leader in integrated silicon solutions, today announced the newest addition to the ARMADA family of application processors – the Marvell® ARMADA™ 610 series. Designed for mobility, the ARMADA 610 features a gigahertz-class CPU, integrated 1080p full-HD encode and decode, and 3D graphics to offer high performance and visual and entertaining experiences for eReader, Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), tablets, smartbook/netbooks, connected portable media players, smartphones, and new personal information appliances. Apart from its family members, the ARMADA 610 is designed to use extremely low power while maintaining high processing performance and attractive price points for manufacturers.

“Marvell is on a mission to change the way consumers enjoy media on their mobile devices – live news and sporting events, on-demand movies, and high-end games,” said Ms. Weili Dai, Marvell's Co-founder and Vice President and General Manager of Marvell Semiconductor’s Consumer and Computing Business Unit. “We’re thinking beyond the traditional PC-laptop with entirely new entertainment experiences – HD quality live video, high performance 3D graphics, super-fast connectivity, and super-long battery life – in mobile products, such as eReaders, tablets, and smartbooks/netbooks, priced for mass consumer market adoption. Marvell's rich featured Armada 610 applications processor differentiates from other competing applications processors by offering integrated 1080p full-HD encode and decode with HDMI interface and gaming class 3D graphics while using very low power.”

The new ARMADA 610 enables unprecedented video support for eReaders, MIDs, tablets, smartbooks/netbooks, and other mobile devices. As full HD 1080p content becomes the standard for video and movies on-demand, streaming live news, as well as inexpensive consumer friendly HD digital camcorders, the need for full 1080p decode and encode support becomes critical for mobile devices. The ARMADA 610 features Marvell’s award winning Qdeo™ technology that can seamlessly encode and decode 1080p video, enabling applications previously impossible for this class of device, such as full-HD camcorders, HD IP cameras, and HD video playback.


About ARMADA 610
The ARMADA 610 is based on a Marvell-designed ARM v7 compatible CPU offering best-in-class performance. It offers the flexibility to use any standard memory (LP-DDR and DDR) based on customers’ cost and power considerations, a highly flexible display controller capable of four simultaneous displays at 2K x 2K resolution (greater than WUXGA) and a highly robust security subsystem that includes a secure execution processor. In addition, it features a powerful 3D engine that renders full 2D/3D graphics with a complete floating point pipeline and unified vertex and fragment/pixel shading, generating contrast-rich video with high-definition resolution and color.

Technical Specifications
The ARMADA 610 supports Open GL ES 2.0 and 1.1 and Open VG for compatibility with anticipated game titles and is able to render 45M triangles per second for an immersive gameplay experience. It also supports advanced peripherals including: MIPI DSI display, MIPI CSI camera, MIPI HSI, and MIPI SLIMbus. Additional IO’s include: USB 2.0 HSIC, SD/SDIO/MMC, embedded MMC (eMMC), HDMI with PHY and a standard set of lower bandwidth peripherals. The ARMADA 610 maintains support for legacy peripherals such as parallel LCD and parallel camera interfaces with integrated laser scanner support. This superior class of integrated peripheral support enables manufacturers to offer smaller and lighter consumer devices with extended battery life.

Marvell’s extensive experience in producing board support packages and reference boards enable a full suite of operating system platforms for the ARMADA 610. The reference platform is a turnkey solution that includes the ARMADA 610 and Marvell’s latest Wi-Fi and cellular technologies, all in a compact form factor for software development. And with support for Linux, Android, Windows Mobile and Windows Embedded CE, ARMADA 610 customers will have one of the broadest choices of platform solutions in the industry.

Availability
The ARMADA 610 will be demonstrated at the Marvell Booth (South Hall 30642) at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week. The ARMADA 610 is currently sampling to early customers.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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