Date: 14/08/2012

Pin-to-pin compatible SoCs from Marvell for both TD-SCDMA and WCDMA

Marvell is offering two improved wireless SoC chips in a single platform for unified 3G. The semiconductor devices offered include PXA988 and PXA986; single-chip application and communications processor System-on-Chips (SoCs) – combined with Marvell’s latest wireless combination technology (Wi-Fi + Bluetooth + FM radio + Near Field Communications (NFC) + GPS), RF transceivers and integrated PMIC solutions for both Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA) and Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) markets. The advantage as per Marvell is with pin-to-pin compatibility, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) can leverage the same printed circuit board (PCB) and ID designs, and operating system, application and multimedia software to address both the WCDMA and TD-SCDMA markets. Engineering samples for the unified platform are available now.

“I believe Marvell’s advanced, single unified dual-core 3G platform will deliver high-performance, affordable smartphones and tablets to the global mass market. In the new era of the ‘Connected Lifestyle,’ I believe it is important for mobile devices, such as tablets, to have a highly integrated single-chip solution, combining a high-performance application processor and an always connected modem with high-end graphics and HD video capabilities,” said Weili Dai, Co-founder of Marvell. “I am very proud and thankful for Marvell's global team of talented engineers, partners and Tier-1 customers in the mobile ecosystem, for their hard work, innovation and dedication to move the industry forward faster.”

Marvell’s new PXA988 and PXA986 SoCs integrating 1.2GHz dual-core processors and cellular modems are offered as successors to Marvell’s PXA920 and PXA968 families of mobile processors, which are already in use in the market.

PXA988's graphics processing unit (GPU) is designed to achieve 192 million triangles per second (MT/s) and feature 533MHz LPDDR2 memory architecture. The PXA988 features a TD-HSPA+ R8 modem which supports dual-carrier aggregation . The new modem also supports Dual SIM Dual Talk, which enables users to activate two services on a single smartphone, and Downlink Dual Carrier (DLDC).

PXA986 is designed for WCDMA markets and is pin-to-pin compatible with the PXA988. Marvell says OEMs can seamlessly re-use their operating system and multimedia software across both mobile platforms to minimize design resources and decrease time to market (TTM). The PXA986 features a HSPA+ R7 modem, which supports 21.1 Mbps download data-rate and 5.76 Mbps upload data-rate, making it a viable solution for 4G smartphones. The PXA986 modem also supports critical features such as Dual SIM Dual Talk.