Marvell and E Ink Join Forces to Deliver a Radical New Generation of Faster,
Lower Power Ultra Thin eReaders for Mass Markets
Consumer Breakthrough: Marvell Gets to Market First with a Total Solution for
Innovative New eReaders at a Variety of Anticipated Price Points
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Nov. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Marvell (Nasdaq: MRVL),
a world leader in storage, communications, and consumer silicon solutions,
today announced its collaboration with E Ink, the supplier of electronic paper
display (EPD) technologies for most of the world's eReaders. The two
companies have begun to ship a highly integrated eReader processor available
in complete turnkey platforms aimed at the fast-growing eReader market. These
new platforms are expected to accelerate the rapid release of new forms of
eReaders at a variety of price points.
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"With this announcement, Marvell raises the technology bar and takes the lead
in the eReader market," said Ms. Weili Dai, Marvell's Co-founder and Vice
President and General Manager of the Company's Consumer and Computing Business
Unit at Marvell Semiconductor, Inc. "Because this is a total platform solution
-- including Marvell key technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G modem, and
power management -- the ARMADA eReader has the potential to deliver the first
mass market product accessible and affordable to billions of consumers around
the world. Marvell's passion is to give consumers more choice, improved
features, and greater access to more information with eReaders that are aimed
at education, health, and business applications."
As one of the fastest growing consumer markets, eReaders continue to grow in
popularity due to falling retail prices, improved features, and fast growing
library of digital content. According to a recent iSuppli Research report,
eReaders are projected to top 18 million units shipped in 2012, from 1.1
million units last year.(1)
"Our collaboration with Marvell will deliver an integrated System-on-a-Chip
(SoC) solution to the market," said Sriram Peruvemba, Vice President of
Marketing at E Ink. "This SoC solution is aimed at offering highly desired
features at competitive price points."
Marvell and E Ink have been working together and co-developing products for
the ePaper market. The recently signed agreement between E Ink and Marvell
includes joint development and cross licensing of next generation ePaper
timing controllers and system platforms, which the companies anticipate will
result in higher integration and lower cost solutions for eReader
manufacturers.
Central to this new eReader platform is the world's first commercially
available SoC that integrates a high performance processor and state of the
art EPD controller on a single chip -- the Marvell® ARMADA(TM) 166E
application processor. The ARMADA 166E is designed to offer users ultra fast
renderings of high resolution PDF documents and support for the latest ePaper
technologies in new smaller, slimmer form factors with lower system cost than
the competition. The ARMADA 166E also brings to eReaders new features that
save power and extend battery life including a unique hibernation mode, or
zero power mode.
The two companies have also joined forces with FirstPaper, LLC, to integrate
unique technology into the ARMADA 166E. This joint innovation enables a range
of display sizes and resolutions, including support for larger screens that
will deliver layouts, graphics, and content choices that people normally
associate with periodicals, larger-format books, and documents.
"Periodicals are the next big frontier in eReading," said Gil Fuchsberg,
President of FirstPaper, which will bring a new eReading ecosystem to market
in 2010. "To enable great newspaper and magazine reading experiences, eReading
devices need the right tools to make richer layouts and complex content come
to life. We're excited to be working with Marvell to bring such tools to the
market." Device manufacturers will be able to take full advantage of
FirstPaper's integrated content and commerce platform with the ARMADA 166E.
Customer Support
Customers have sampled and integrated the Marvell ARMADA and E Ink based
eReader platforms into their end solutions -- consumer ready eReaders are
expected to be available to end-users in 2010.
"The enTourage eDGe(TM) is the industry's first dualbook, combining an E Ink
reader with a netbook, notepad and audio/video player and recorder into one
central device," said Asghar Mostafa, President and CEO of enTourage Systems.
"The ARMADA 166E gives the enTourage eDGe the power it needs to meet people's
multiple, yet simultaneous digital needs, at an attractive price point within
reach of all consumers."
"Marvell's support was a key enabler in Plastic Logic's development of a high
performance eReader to meet the needs of business professionals," said Frank
Canova, VP Product Engineering for Plastic Logic. "Plastic Logic plans to
unveil the category's first proReader on January 7 at the 2010 Consumer
Electronics Show."
"During our development of the Alex Reader -- a dual screen eReader that
incorporates both E Ink for high contrast eReading, and color LCD screen for
multimedia playback and enhanced web browsing, Marvell was the clear choice,"
noted Albert Teng, Founder and CTO at Spring Design. "We needed a processor
that could run Android while delivering outstanding multimedia performance."
About ARMADA
The Marvell ARMADA family of application processors is the first to offer
customized silicon solutions for market segments ranging from smartphones to
consumer, embedded, and smartbook devices combined with fully optimized
support of industry standard operating systems and software frameworks such as
Google Android, Microsoft Windows Embedded, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Adobe
Flash, Ubuntu and Maemo while offering OEMs a high level of software re-use in
order to enable them to focus on product differentiation at the application
and user interface levels.
About E Ink
E Ink Corporation is the world's leading supplier of electronic paper display
(EPD) technologies. E Ink's technology is ideal for many consumer and
industrial applications spanning handheld devices, eBooks, eNewspapers,
PC-accessories, public information displays and promotional signs. E Ink is a
private corporation that includes among its investors and strategic partners
Air Products and Chemicals, ChiLin Technology, Epson, Hearst Corp, Intel
Capital, LG Display, Motorola, Philips, Prime View International, Toppan
Printing Co and Wacom. E Ink's customers include Amazon, Casio, Citizen,
Hanwang, Hitachi, iRex, Lexar, Plastic Logic, Samsung and Sony. Recently, E
Ink has signed an agreement to merge with Prime View International (8069: TWO)
with the intent to close the merger by December 2009. E Ink news can be found
at: www.eink.com.
About Marvell
Marvell (Nasdaq: MRVL) is a world leader in the development of storage,
communications, and consumer silicon solutions. Marvell's diverse product
portfolio includes switching, transceiver, communications controller,
wireless, and storage solutions that power the entire communications
infrastructure including enterprise, metro, home, and storage networking. As
used in this release, the terms "company" and "Marvell" refer to Marvell
Technology Group Ltd. and its subsidiaries. For more information, visit
http://www.marvell.com.
Marvell and the Marvell logo are registered trademarks of Marvell or its
affiliates. Armada is a trademark of Marvell or its affiliates. Other names
and brands may be claimed as the property of others
(1) iSuppli, Applied Market Intelligence Report, H1 2008 Small / Medium
Displays topical report - Emerging Applications, "Electronic Books Drive New
Applications for Displays"
For Further Information Contact:
Marvell Media Relations Marvell Media Relations
Diane Vanasse Tate Tran
Tel: (408) 332-3137 Tel: (408) 222-7522
dvanasse@marvell.com tate@marvell.com
SOURCE Marvell
Diane Vanasse, +1-408-332-3137, dvanasse@marvell.com, or Tate Tran,
+1-408-222-7522, tate@marvell.com, both of Marvell Media Relations
