The Linley Group has recently learned that Marvell has begun shipping production quantities of its Kirkwood Duo processors, the 88F6321, '6322, and '6323. As the name suggests, these are dual-core versions of the company's Kirkwood processors. They fill a narrow gap between the single-core versions and the company's Discovery Innovation line. We estimate that they sell in 10K quantities for $18–$35.
Like Marvell's other processors, Kirkwood Duos use ARM-compatible CPUs developed by Marvell and supporting the ARMv5 instruction set. Although they are dual-core processors, they do not support symmetric multiprocessing (SMP). SMP and ARMv6/ARMv7 compatibility are to come in future processors based on Marvell's PJ4 CPU.
The company targets Kirkwood Duo broadly: broadband gateways, standalone storage systems, WLAN access points, and other systems. For gateways, the processors integrate TDM interfaces to connect to SLICs for analog voice, two or three GbE ports to connect to broadband modems and LAN switches, and an encryption engine. Storage systems most likely would use a separate SATA controller connected via PCIe, and external drives could connect via USB or SATA. A RAID and CRC engine is incorporated for use in network-attached storage. In an access point, the WLAN cards would connect via PCIe.
Operating at up to 1.2GHz and consuming a thrifty 5W (max) at 1GHz, these processors provide a strong combination of performance, features, power consumption, and price. --Joe
Joseph Byrne, senior analyst
Complete coverage of Marvell's processors is available in our new report "A Guide to High-Speed Embedded Processors."
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment