Product category:
Communications ICs (Wired)
News Release from: Marvell | Subject: Discovery III
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 08 October 2003
System controllers accelerate PowerPC
applications
Marvell reckons it has developed the industry's fastest system controller architecture for MIPS and PowerPC processor-based systems.
Marvell reckons it has developed the industry's fastest system controller architecture for MIPS and PowerPC processor-based systems Building on Marvell's industry-standard Discovery platform, the new Discovery III devices are optimally designed for a broad range of applications, ranging from sophisticated routers, switches and wireless basestations to high-volume storage and laser printer applications
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 3 Mar 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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The Discovery III family is the industry's first to support 200MHz interface for next generation high performance PowerPC and MIPS CPUs.
The six devices in the Discovery III family offer a rich feature mix incorporating a100Gbit/s nonblocking crossbar architecture, advanced communications peripherals and optimised interfaces, setting new technology benchmarks for performance and integration.
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Additionally, the Discovery III integrates RAID engines to accelerate next generation storage applications "Since its launch in December 2000, the Discovery family of system controllers has been established as the market leader with multiple design wins", said Balaji Baktha, Marvell's General Manager for the Embedded and Emerging Products Business Unit.
"The Marvell Discovery III system controllers, have already been selected by several leading communications, storage and printer OEMs utilising next generation CPU architecture thus earning support from major PowerPC and MIPS CPU vendors".
"IBM PowerPC embedded microprocessors offer superior performance, scalability, integration and power efficiency for demanding applications", said Lisa Su, Director of Power PC and Emerging Products, IBM Microelectronics.
"Marvell's new Discovery III system controller combined with IBM's PowerPC 750GX microprocessor offers embedded system designers a high-performance solution for demanding next-generation applications".
"We are excited about the availability of Marvell's new Discovery III development system because it fully leverages the SMP capabilities of our MPC7455/57 PowerPC processors and MPX bus protocols to speed up overall system performance", said Glenn Beck, Marketing Manager for Motorola's Computing Platforms Division.
"Marvell and Motorola have a long history of delivering complementary solutions that benefit our respective customers.
The innovative architecture of Discovery III enables system designers to develop cutting-edge solutions for next-generation applications based on Motorola's high-performance PowerPC processors".
"Marvell's new Discovery III system controller offers a level of performance and integration ideal for building high-performance MIPS-based subsystems", said Tom Riordan, Vice President and General Manager of PMC-Sierra's Microprocessor Products Division.
"When paired with PMC-Sierra's powerful single or dual 1GHz RM9000 family processors or the RM5200 and RM7000 family processors, the market now has a new best-of-breed solution with leading edge, no compromise performance".
Marvell offers complete development platforms for the Discovery III devices, enabling customers to start system development without waiting for their own hardware.
Development platforms are available for popular MIPS and PowerPC processors including IBM750GX, Motorola MPC7457 and PMC Sierra RM9000.
Complete reference design collateral including software drivers, board support package for VxWorks 5.5 and schematics are provided to accelerate customer development.
Marvell Discovery product family features the most widely adopted system and communication controllers in the industry.
The Discovery III system controller integrates several I/O peripherals on-chip, including Gigabit Ethernet, PCI-X bridges, storage functions and DDR memory interface.
The Discovery III is software compatible with the existing Marvell system controllers preserving customer software investments while accelerating development cycles.
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