Marvell Launches Avastar Family of Wireless Devices Delivering Best-in-Class Multi-Function Radios

LAS VEGAS, Jan. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CES -- Marvell (Nasdaq: MRVL), a worldwide leader in integrated silicon solutions, today announced the Avastar(TM) family of wireless connectivity solutions targeting the entire spectrum of always-on consumer electronics devices including handsets, portable media players, eReaders, printers, digital cameras,

smartbooks/netbooks, digital TVs (DTVs), Set-Top-Boxes (STBs), DVD players, gaming consoles, thermostats, and other home appliances. The Avastar family includes single-function and multi-function radios (Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/FM/GPS) that establish new industry benchmarks for power consumption, wireless performance, solution footprint, and advanced features. This allows original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to create more reliable, affordable and slimmer products with longer battery life to provide the best possible consumer experience.

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"Marvell has been a pioneer in the development of Wi-Fi technology for consumer electronics (CE) starting with our first generation of Wi-Fi enabled CE products in 2003. With the new Avastar family, we are ready to assume the mantle of leadership for multi-function wireless devices," said Partho Mishra, Vice President and General Manager of Marvell Semiconductor's Embedded and Emerging Business Unit. "Over the last two years, our technology teams developed wireless IP cores which we believe are at least a generation ahead of any competitive product. Today, we can quickly snap these cores together to create highly optimized wireless devices for a particular market. Our team hears positive feedback from our customers about the 88W8787 Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and FM device. For example, the wireless solutions have enabled several tier one CE platforms to demonstrate vastly better performance in head-to-head customer lab bake-offs against competitive products while remaining extremely cost effective."

Avastar family highlights include:

• Lower power consumption: Each of the Marvell wireless radios has been designed to consume efficiently in all system modes - sleep, active standby and active Rx/Tx. In some cases, Avastar solutions use less than one fourth the power of comparable solutions, dramatically extending battery life for mobile products.
• Smallest footprint: Avastar wireless solutions are up to one half the size of comparable products on the market.
• Superior Wi-Fi 802.11n performance: Avastar's 802.11n devices support both 2.4 and 5 GHz modes of operations and employ advanced features to maximize the range and integrity of the wireless network:
  • One, two, and three spatial stream configurations with PHY data rates from 150 to 450Mbps
  • Best available receive sensitivity for increased network range
  • Support for Tx beam-forming and other advanced features which dramatically improve link robustness
• Proven Bluetooth technology: Marvell Bluetooth solutions are shipping today across multiple generations of handsets, portable media players, gaming platforms, and automotive telematics. Avastar builds on those designs to deliver a mature, first rate Bluetooth solution supporting the latest industry specifications with extremely low power consumption in active and standby modes.
• Best-in-class radio-coexistence: Avastar employs a unique systems approach to address the complex challenges associated with concurrent radio operation in shared antenna designs. By harmonizing the interaction of an integrated shared RF front end with effective silicon arbitration techniques and intelligent software, Avastar ensures that the wireless performance approaches theoretically expected limits.
• Embedded ARM technology: Avastar wireless System-on-a-Chips (SoCs) include Marvell's industry leading CPU cores to deliver the most optimal wireless system partitioning. The resulting architecture offers multiple benefits to OEM designs:
  • Offloads the host application processor of all major wireless functions including network management, security, scanning, co-existence, roaming, and enterprise voice and data
  • Simplifies wireless integration which substantially reduces time to market
  • Lowest overall host CPU utilization for wireless functions
  • Minimizes overall system power consumption through autonomous management of the wireless network while the rest of the system sleeps
• Marvell Mobile Hotspot (MMH): Avastar Wi-Fi devices implement both a full featured 11n Wi-Fi access point and station mode and can operate in these modes concurrently. This capability fostered a new class of OEM products and use cases for mobile devices:
  • Award winning MMH technology has enabled 3G data cards and smartphones to become personal Wi-Fi hot spots
  • Supports device and service discovery for user friendly peer-to-peer networking via Wi-Fi Direct
• WAPI Acceleration: Avastar's China-ready Wi-Fi solution includes an integrated WAPI hardware engine that supports SMS4 encryption at line rate.
• Upgrade Path: Avastar software solutions are backward compatible with previous generation Marvell wireless products, creating a natural upgrade path for the millions of Marvell wireless devices in the market today.

There are eight devices in the Avastar family, out of which the following are currently sampling to customers:

• 88W8782:Wi-Fi
• 88W8787:Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and FM
• 88W8789:Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
• 88W8790:Bluetooth and FM

Additional devices will be introduced by Marvell during the first half of 2010.

Marvell will be showing demonstrations of these products at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Customers and press can come by the booth for demonstrations: South Hall 3 Upper Level, Booth 30642. For technical specifications on the Avastar family, please visit www.marvell.com.

About Marvell

Marvell (NASDAQ: MRVL) is a world leader in the development of storage, communications, and consumer silicon solutions. The company's diverse product portfolio includes switching, transceiver, communications controller, wireless, and storage solutions that power the entire communications infrastructure including enterprise, metro, home, and storage networking. As used in this release, the terms "company" and "Marvell" refer to Marvell Technology Group Ltd. and its subsidiaries. For more information, visit http://www.marvell.com.

Marvell® and the Marvell logo are registered trademark of Marvell or its affiliates. Avastar is a trademark of Marvell or its affiliates. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

    For Further Information Contact:

    Marvell Media Relations                   Marvell Media Relations
    Diane Vanasse                             Tate Tran
    Tel: (408) 222-5198                       Tel: (408) 222-7522
    [email protected]                      [email protected]

SOURCE Marvell Semiconductor, Inc.