Marvell (NASDAQ: MRVL) today introduced a new generation family of OCTEON Fusion® processors built on the OCTEON® TX2 platform and optimized for cellular base station designs including baseband unit and smart radio unit applications. 5G wireless networks promise a dramatic improvement in bandwidth and latency, delivering an unprecedented level of service and unlocking new use cases for mobile operators. To make this promise a reality, 5G wireless infrastructure requires more processing power and OCTEON Fusion is optimized to meet this surging demand for compute. Built on Marvell’s OCTEON TX2 platform, which provides a complex of Arm® v8 cores and a series of hardware accelerators for networking and security, OCTEON Fusion adds programmable DSP cores and baseband accelerators making it the optimal solution for base stations. More than seven million OCTEON and OCTEON Fusion processors have been designed into 3G, 4G and now 5G base stations worldwide and leading tier 1 telecommunication infrastructure OEMs have already selected the latest OCTEON Fusion processors for their next generation of 5G base stations.
The OCTEON Fusion family is ideally suited for layer 1 processing in traditional all-in-one base stations as well as Distributed Unit (DU) processing in 5G split architectures. In addition, the highly scalable multi-core OCTEON Fusion architecture enables it to address a multitude of base station solutions from mid-capacity small cells to high-capacity modular macro cells. In the Radio Unit (RU), the family offers processing solutions for smart radio heads requiring more compute power to support the complex beamforming algorithms associated with massive MIMO antenna arrays.
OCTEON Fusion is an integral part of Marvell’s portfolio of semiconductor solutions for Radio Access Network (RAN) infrastructure. This platform enables OEMs to construct RAN solutions with world-class silicon from a single supplier and supports industry standard software and APIs to facilitate product development.
The Marvell RAN portfolio includes:
- OCTEON Fusion: Complete 4G and 5G layer 1 baseband processing
- OCTEON TX2: Layer 2 and 3 transport and control plane processing
- Prestera®: A line of Ethernet switching solutions for fronthaul, backhaul and intra-RAN connectivity
- Ethernet Connectivity: Marvell’s Ethernet adapter, controller, and PHY product lines provide a comprehensive set of connectivity options for RAN infrastructure
- Custom and semi-custom ASICS: OEM-differentiated solutions for baseband and radio unit designs
