Marvell Semiconductor who started up in hard drive controller has actively expanded its procut porfolio of storage devices, networking and communications, connectivity, mobile communications and consumer electronics. It has been offering software and hardware designs for six types of end devices for five categories of cloud, providing completed services for silicon component vendors, manufacturers, software developers, as well as system integrators, in achieving its "Smart Life and Smart Lifestyle" vision.
Software and hardware integration for six types of end devices in five clouds
According to Weining Gan, Chief Solution Architect at Marvell Semiconductor, Marvell was established in Silicon Valley in 1995, and is the world's top-five fabless semiconductor company with branches in Silicon Valley, Shanghai, Israel, Europe, India, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, and Korea. Its products span across storage, networking, communications, connectivity components, mobile communications and consumer electronics sectors shipping billion chips sold each year.
Marvell focuses on six types of end devices used in five types of cloud environments: 1. Smart TVs; 2. PCs/Chromebook laptops; 3. Tablets; 4. Mobile phones; 5. Wearable devices; and 6. IoT equipment. It is also engaged in products for operator router equipment in Internet infrastructure clouds, CE routers for enterprise users, 4G LTE/Wi-Fi network connectivity components for the mobile cloud, as well as broadband modems for home clouds. A total of 70% of global SSD controller ICs are from Marvell, and it introduced the first ARM server to the market. Marvell is also the second-largest silicon component supplier for data centers.
End-to-end mobile cloud hardware and software solutions
Silicon components used in mobile devices, such as PC/Chromebooks, tablets, mobile phones, wearable devices, and IoT devices, include application processors, graphics controllers, cellular modem ICs, RF radio ICs, Wi-Fi 802.11 wireless networking ICs, Bluetooth chips, NFC ICs, GPS chips, microcontrollers, and sensor hub ICs, said Gan.
Licensed frequency band RANs such as those of 4G/LTE involve the microwave equipment required for the backhaul network and PON equipment and front-haul base station technology for the future cloud RAN. Metropolitan transmissions backbones take advantage of IP RAN (L3 VPN) and PTN (L2 VPN) technologies, as well as LTE back-end Evolved Packet Core (EPC). In unlicensed (Wi-Fi) RAN architecture, a portion of the customer front-end goes through the 4G LTE or WiFi and transitions to wireline IP RAN/PTN backbone network at intermediate base stations. For the last mile, it goes back to 4G LTE/Wi-Fi to the broadband modem or small cell of the user.
Backbone networks connecting nations and continents use IP/MPLS multiprotocol label switching and OTN/DWDM fiber-optic long-range transmissions technologies. Marvell provides silicon components used by the aforementioned technologies including high-performance multi-core processors, network processors, integrated packet processors, high-capacity switching fiber-optic equipment, high-speed Ethernet switches, high-speed Ethernet physical layer IP, 10G PON passive fiber-optic network components, as well as H.hn G.fast components.
Gan pointed out that the data centers operators such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Baidu, and Tencent, regardless of what clustering architectures they use, all require silicon component such as high-performance multicore processors, network processors, integrated packet processors, high-capacity fiber-optic switching equipment, high-speed Ethernet switches, as well as high-speed Ethernet physical layer components.
Evolution of data centers and status of market ecosystem
The data center industry ecosystem, Gan pointed out, is composed of system software, application software, maintenance services, silicon components, system design and contracted manufacturers. Traditional data centers first went through system design by system vendors who also selected the system software and maintenance services. Then, they looked up to silicon component suppliers to provide ICs components, contract manufacturers to establish production contracts, application software developers to be responsible for a portion of the maintenance services. Server and computing systems vendors include those from IBM, HP, and Dell; storage device vendors include EMC, NetApp, and Hitachi; networking and communications equipment were provided by Cisco, Juniper, Brocade, and etc.
Data centers designed under traditional vendor differentiation can increase the value of system developers but are not able to reduce subsequent data center operating costs, which is why the new "vanity free" design concept is impacting the entire industry ecosystem. With silicon ICs/components, CM/ODM, and maintenance services determined during the system design phase as well as system software implemented based on open source codes integrated with in-house software, vanity free data center designs can significantly reduce early-phase costs as well as operating expenses.
Gan said that the most famous vanity free project is Facebook's Open Compute Project (OCP) which establishes one of the most efficient computing infrastructures at the lowest possible cost. Its servers are vanity free in order to reduce the cost of computing nodes, while the design of its storage system is also segmented to include low-cost storage device areas, thereby building a highly energy efficient data center. Virtual IO is used to design open and scalable computing resources, with remote control management tools designed to ensure solid hardware management. In addition, certification standards are also designed for solutions providers.
Between April 2011 and April 2012, OPC open computing centers totaling 300,000 square feet in floor space were built in Prineville, Oregon, and Forest City, North Carolina, respectively. In 2014, another OCP data center opened in Lulea, Sweden which occupies a plot of land totaling 968,000 square feet. At the end of 2014, there will be 1.4 million-square foot OCP data center in Altoona, Iowa. Vanity free design brings an additional 38% of energy efficiency in computing and save an additional 24% in costs.
Marvell buildse end-to-end industry ecosystem
Gan also pointed out that Marvell has built a consolidated end-to-end industry ecosystem centered around customer demand. Marvell provides fundamental silicon solutions as well as box-level solutions for manufacturing services to the CM/OEM/ODM. Marvell also engages in application-level solutions in collaboration with independent software vendors.
He concluded that Marvell provides complete silicon components, software and hardware resource including multicore application processors, system software, wireless networking components, and Ethernet physical layer connectivity components for mobile phone, as well as the packet processors needed by switches, the network processors needed for network packet control, and control panels, thereby enhancing the end user experiences.
Weining Gan, Chief Solution Architect at Marvell Semiconductor