Google and Marvell together confirmed a plan to move Google TV to ARM on Thursday with a new platform launch. Marvell's Foresight platform, led by the Armada 1500 HD full system on a chip, will handle all the processing for 2D and 3D video, audio, and general tasks. Its dual-core design is fast enough to handle Flash and HD, and has power levels likened more closely to a cellphone than a set-top box.
As rumored, Marvell today officially unveiled a fresh three-core ARM processor that could provide very high performance to smartphones and tablets. The Armada 628 runs at 1.5GHz but has a unique asymmetric design for both longevity and speed. While two cores handle most work, a third core is tuned to low power and manages both routine tasks as well as the performance of the other two chips, giving it the power profile of a phone but much more performance.
EA today showed off a first game for the Nintendo 3DS that backs beliefs that the handheld is using a much faster platform than initially suspected. The garden creation game My Garden has both much more geometry than a typical DS/DSi game but has high dynamic range effects for bloom and depth of field to create a soft background. Many of the in-game objects also have their own individual shadows.
A slip today by Japanese accessory creator keysfactory may have preempted Nintendo's plans to reveal a 3DS release date. A designer with the firm posted Twitter updates (since deleted) that 11 add-ons for the game console would ship November 20 and, based on translation by Nintendo 3DS Blog, simultaneously with the 3DS itself. Nintendo has implied an end-of-year launch in at least Japan but hasn't pledged itself to that timeframe so far.
Marvell during a call discussing its latest fiscal results revealed that one of its Armada processors will reach a game console. Company co-founder Sehat Sutardja explained that a quarter-to-quarter boost of revenue was owing to a "major customer" ramping up a "new gaming platform." The executive didn't give away any clues as to the customer or choice of processor in the Seeking Alpha transcript of the call.
Marvell today at the Netbook Summit showed a mystery 10-inch tablet. The aluminum-shelled slate would be based on the company's Moby reference design and would combine Android 2.1 with Marvell's high-speed Armada 610 processor. Little else is clear about the design, but it would have space for a front camera.
Marvell on Thursday promised one of the most aggressive plans for a tablet so far. As part of a new initiative, a tablet prototype known as the Moby would cost just $99 but would use Marvell's Armada 600 ARM processor to provide performance that would be unavailable from much more expensive devices. It should support hardware 1080p video playback, contemporary 3D graphics, and Flash-based content.
Marvell at the Future of Publishing Summit on Tuesday showed a prototype of a 10-inch tablet running Android. The example device uses a non-production shell but is expected to be fast, using an ARM-based Armada processor that could give it 1080p video playback without hurting battery life. The version on display appears to be using Android 1.6 rather than 2.0 or 2.1, but this would be more likely to change in a finished product.
Mobile devices chipmaker Marvell on Thursday announced the release of the ARMADA 618 chip, a new processor meant for high-end smartphones. The new chip has an integrated encoder and decoder for both capturing and playing back 1080p videos, and also supplies relatively quick 3D graphics. The part runs at 1GHz and claims the industry's fastest LP-DDR memory, which should cut down on access times.
