The devices that enable a connected home must talk to each other in terms of control and in terms of data transfer. On January 6, 2010, Marvell announced the Avastar family of wireless connectivity solutions targeting the entire spectrum of always-on consumer electronics devices including handsets, portable media players, eReaders, printers, digital cameras, smartbooks/netbooks, digital TVs (DTVs), Set-Top-Boxes (STBs), DVD players, gaming consoles, thermostats, and other home appliances. The Avastar family includes single-function and multi-function radios (Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/FM/GPS) that establish new industry benchmarks for power consumption, wireless performance, solution footprint, and advanced features. This allows original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to create more reliable, affordable and slimmer products with longer battery life to provide the best possible consumer experience. Each of the Marvell wireless radios has been designed to consume efficiently in all system modes - sleep, active standby and active Rx/Tx. In some cases, Avastar solutions use less than one fourth the power of comparable solutions, dramatically extending battery life for mobile products. Avastar wireless solutions are up to one half the size of comparable products on the market. Avastar's 802.11n devices support both 2.4 and 5 GHz modes of operations and employ advanced features to maximize the range and integrity of the wireless network: * One, two, and three spatial stream configurations with PHY data rates from 150 to 450Mbps * Best available receive sensitivity for increased network range * Support for Tx beam-forming and other advanced features which dramatically improve link robustness Marvell Bluetooth solutions are shipping today across multiple generations of handsets, portable media players, gaming platforms, and automotive telematics.
Avastar builds on those designs to deliver a mature, first rate Bluetooth solution supporting the latest industry specifications with extremely low power consumption in active and standby modes. Avastar employs a unique systems approach to address the complex challenges associated with concurrent radio operation in shared antenna designs. By harmonizing the interaction of an integrated shared RF front end with effective silicon arbitration techniques and intelligent software, Avastar ensures that the wireless performance approaches theoretically expected limits. Avastar wireless System-on-a-Chips (SoCs) include Marvell's industry leading CPU cores to deliver the most optimal wireless system partitioning. The resulting architecture offers multiple benefits to OEM designs:
- Offloads the host application processor of all major wireless functions including network management, security, scanning, co-existence, roaming, and enterprise voice and data
- Simplifies wireless integration which substantially reduces time to market
- Lowest overall host CPU utilization for wireless functions
- Minimizes overall system power consumption through autonomous management of the wireless network while the rest of the system sleeps
Avastar Wi-Fi devices implement both a full featured 11n Wi-Fi access point and station mode and can operate in these modes concurrently. This capability fostered a new class of OEM products and use cases for mobile devices. MMH technology has enabled 3G data cards and smartphones to become personal Wi-Fi hot spots, enabling support of device and service discovery for user friendly peer-to-peer networking via Wi-Fi Direct. Because of multi-function wireless capability, traditionally mobile devices have become integral parts of the home electronics environment.