Marvell Doubles Down With Quad-Core ARM

Embedded processors have lagged behind their desktop and laptop counterparts in the multi-core race, sticking to single-core designs in most cases, with the occasional dual-core Intel Atom or ARM processor.

Well, Marvell (NASDAQ: MRVL) is upping the ante with the announcement of a quad-core ARM design for embedded systems. The chip, which will ship some time later this year, is based on the firm's recently announced Armada 500 and 600 processors and can hit up to 1GHz in clock speed.

Marvell is one of many licensees of the ARM architecture. It has an architecture license from ARM, meaning it can not only modify the core design of the processor, it can add to it. In addition to its own expertise, Marvell acquired the Xscale team from Intel in 2006, which also focused on ARM designs.

The Armada 500 series is for high-end smartbooks and tablets and the 600 series is for high-end smartphones. Both have been tuned for very low power consumption, something Xscale technology is very good at.

"Today's media-rich consumer applications are already pushing the limits. By making quad-core capabilities available to our customers we will enable the newest generation of cutting-edge devices that consumers will always demand -- more horsepower, higher performance, better battery life, and more attractive price points than ever before for mass consumer market adoption," said Weili Dai, co-founder and vice president and general manager of Marvell Semiconductor's consumer and computing business unit in a statement.

Normally, Marvell goes for niche markets ranging from network gateways and printers to pachinko gaming machines, but this quad-core product is designed for the mass consumer market. That might prove a challenge for the firm, noted Jim McGregor, chief technology analyst for In-Stat.

"Marvell has been typically been good at the niche apps. The problem now is [that] everyone wants to play in the general application market. They want the high-volume apps and that's a very tough market. Look at the players and each company has its advantages," he told InternetNews.com.

McGregor thinks a four-core design brings potential benefit to the embedded market. "It really depends what you want these things to do. One of the big things about multi-cores is being able to execute instructions as quick as possible and shut the processor down to save power. Most people think that if you add more cores, it doesn't save power, but it does -- if you execute quicker, you [can] shut down quicker and save battery life," he said.

But there are potential drawbacks. "This is one of those situations where you have to ask, 'Is it worth it?' For mobile apps, you get to a point of diminishing returns like we get with PCs, so you have to plan it well to see if it is worth it," said McGregor.