Samsung and Marvell develop low-power SoC to support 5G

Samsung and Marvell have co-developed a new system on a chip (SoC) to augment cellular radios’ performance.

Prepped to support 4G and 5G basebands simultaneously, the new SoC increases cellular radios’ capacity and coverage while decreasing power consumption and size. Additionally, the chip can save up to 70% in chipset power consumption compared to previous models.

“We are excited to extend our collaboration with Marvell to unveil a new SoC that will combine both companies’ strengths in innovation to advance 5G network solutions,” said Junehee Lee, executive vice president and head of R&D of networks business at Samsung Electronics.

“Samsung prioritizes the development of high-impact 5G solutions that offer a competitive edge to our operators. We look forward to introducing this latest solution to the market shortly.”

Samsung and Marvell previously collaborated on innovative radio unit architectures to address the rising compute power requirements caused by massive multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) deployments.

The companies also engineered multiple generations of leading baseband and transport processing solutions for base stations employing Marvell’s OCTEON and OCTEON Fusion processors.

“Marvell and Samsung are leading the way in helping mobile operators deploy 5G with greater speed and efficiency,” said Daniel Newman, founding partner at Futurum Research.

“This latest collaboration advances what’s possible through SoC technology, giving operators and enterprises a distinct 5G advantage through optimized performance and power savings in network deployments.”

According to reports, the jointly developed SoC is earmarked for Samsung’s massive MIMO and other advanced radios.

“Our collaboration with Samsung spans multiple generations of radio network products and demonstrates Samsung’s strong technology leadership. The joint effort includes 4G and 5G basebands and radios,” said Raj Singh, executive vice president of Marvell’s processors business group.

“We are again honored to work with Samsung for the next generation Massive MIMO radios which significantly raise the bar in terms of capacity, performance and power efficiency.”