Wednesday, November 29, 2006
The Next Generation of XScale: Monahans Is Here!
Posted by Nurhisham Hussein in "HARDWARE" @ 10:00 PM
"The PXA3xx family of processors delivers improved performance and extended battery life, enabling advanced video and audio capabilities. Wireless Intel SpeedStep® with MusicMax technology provides intelligent power management, enabling varying power states so users can listen up to 30 hours of MP3s on their handsets without sacrificing battery life. Intel VideoMax technology in the PXA3xx family of application processors supports high-performance video capabilities, and will continue delivering improved resolution with future versions of the PXA3xx family of processors."
Marvell, who on November 8 completed the acquisition of Intel's cellular and application processor line (which includes the XScale processors widely used in Windows Mobile devices), have just unveiled their latest generation of mobile processors. The three new processors can be summarised as follows:
•PXA320 (Monahans-P)- 1.2GHz scalable down to 806MHz, general applications processor;
•PXA310 (Monahans-LV) - multimedia processor, supposedly capable of 30fps H.264 playback in VGA resolutions; and
•PXA300 (Monahans-L) - the budget line
Both -L and -LV variants can scale down to 624MHz. All three are available in sample form or are already shipping in volume - Marvell expects production to be in full swing by the first quarter of 2007, and the first devices sporting these processors should appear about the same time. Marvell's making a lot of promises here - faster processing, lower power consumption, and more transparent frequency scaling. Whichever of these advancements these processors happen to fulfill, this is a big leap forward, the first in over three years in terms of processing speed and power. Faster web-browsing, faster video (hopefully getting rid of the need to transcode video) - I sense lots of fun times ahead! :D
Edit: Based on peaz's link, it looks like these babies show considerably advances in power consumption and processing speed. Also, the PXA320 is currently only available in 806MHz with hardware video acceleration, and the 310 (also with hardware video acceleration) and 300 are only available in 624MHz.
Marvell, who on November 8 completed the acquisition of Intel's cellular and application processor line (which includes the XScale processors widely used in Windows Mobile devices), have just unveiled their latest generation of mobile processors. The three new processors can be summarised as follows:
•PXA320 (Monahans-P)- 1.2GHz scalable down to 806MHz, general applications processor;
•PXA310 (Monahans-LV) - multimedia processor, supposedly capable of 30fps H.264 playback in VGA resolutions; and
•PXA300 (Monahans-L) - the budget line
Both -L and -LV variants can scale down to 624MHz. All three are available in sample form or are already shipping in volume - Marvell expects production to be in full swing by the first quarter of 2007, and the first devices sporting these processors should appear about the same time. Marvell's making a lot of promises here - faster processing, lower power consumption, and more transparent frequency scaling. Whichever of these advancements these processors happen to fulfill, this is a big leap forward, the first in over three years in terms of processing speed and power. Faster web-browsing, faster video (hopefully getting rid of the need to transcode video) - I sense lots of fun times ahead! :D
Edit: Based on peaz's link, it looks like these babies show considerably advances in power consumption and processing speed. Also, the PXA320 is currently only available in 806MHz with hardware video acceleration, and the 310 (also with hardware video acceleration) and 300 are only available in 624MHz.
