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Marvell and Valve Partner to Deliver Groundbreaking PC Gaming Experience on the TV

Marvell's leading ARMADA 1500 Mini and Avastar 88W8897 SoCs power Valve's Steam Link device to enable seamless, high-quality Steam gaming experiences on the TV

Santa Clara, California (November 16, 2015) – Marvell (NASDAQ:MRVL) — a worldwide leader in providing complete silicon solutions from storage to Internet of Things (IoT), cloud infrastructure, digital entertainment, in-home content delivery and Kinoma® software enabling the “Smart Life and Smart Lifestyle”— today announced that Marvell’s ARMADA® 1500 Mini (88DE3005) System-on-Chip (SoC), Avastar® 88W8897 11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip and power management integrated circuits (PMIC) components are at the core of Valve’s Steam Link, a wireless streaming device that is designed to bring the Steam gaming experience to any room in the house. Together with Valve’s industry-leading gaming expertise, Marvell is proud to enable a robust solution, optimized for low latency streaming of high-definition gaming content from the PC to the TV for just $50.

“We are proud of our collaboration with Valve on the Steam Link device,” said Gaurav Shah, Vice President of Marketing of Multimedia Solutions Business Unit at Marvell. “Our industry-leading ARMADA 1500 Mini processor, coupled with our highly-integrated, breakthrough wireless solution is designed to enable best-in-class video latency with reliable performance, making it well-suited for streaming graphics and sound intensive gaming applications.”

Marvell's ARMADA 1500 Mini platform has met the stringent video requirements of very low latency at 60 frames per second (fps) in H264 format for a seamless gaming experience. The Avastar 88W8897 SoC is a low-power 802.11ac wireless solution that combines MIMO Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, transmit beamforming with built-in support for Wi-Fi Certified Miracast. Supporting one of today’s leading connectivity standards, 802.11ac, the Avastar 88W8897 provides increased wireless communication bandwidth and robustness over the Wi-Fi link, extending wireless capabilities to power bandwidth-hungry and low-latency multimedia applications, such as streaming high-definition video and gaming.


“When considering a partner for our Steam Link device, we were impressed with Marvell’s proven leadership in powering groundbreaking devices,” said Valve's Sam Lantinga, Senior Software Engineer at Valve. “Our collaboration with Marvell has resulted in an incredibly affordable and powerful solution for streaming more than 6,000 games on Steam to a big screen in your living room or any screen in the home.”

Key Features of Marvell’s complete platform solutioninclude:

ARMADA 1500 Mini (88DE3005)

  • An innovative and cost-effective multi-screen solution designed to provide instantaneous and seamless access to YouTube, Netflix, and other cloud based content on devices including Google’s Chromecast and Valve’s Steam Link.
  • Optimized to support 1080p content, it has a high security grade that enables multiple DRM solutions like Verimatrix, Widevine and PlayReady.
  • Implements sophisticated high quality audio, video, and graphics capabilities
  • Plugs straight into any TV HDMI port transforming any screen into a smart and immersive entertainment platform.

Avastar 88W8897

  • IEEE 802.11ac compliant
  • 2x2 MIMO spatial stream multiplexing with data rates up to MCS9 (866.7 Mbps)
  • Bluetooth 4.2 + High Speed (HS) and Low Energy (LE)
  • Near field communication (NFC) connectivity technology
  • Highly integrated solution with front-end PA, LNA, and Switch
  • Low-power and robust performance adopted in variety of multimedia and cloud-based applications including Gaming console, Set-top Boxes, Mobile computing

About Marvell
Marvell (NASDAQ: MRVL) is a global leader in providing complete silicon solutions and Kinoma software enabling the “Smart Life and Smart Lifestyle.” From storage to Internet of Things (IoT), cloud infrastructure, digital entertainment and in-home content delivery, Marvell’s diverse product portfolio aligns complete platform designs with industry-leading performance, security, reliability and efficiency. At the core of the world’s most powerful consumer, network and enterprise systems, Marvell empowers partners and their customers to always stand at the forefront of innovation, performance and mass appeal. By providing people around the world with mobility and ease of access to services adding value to their social, private and work lives, Marvell is committed to enhancing the human experience.

As used in this release, the term “Marvell” refers to Marvell Technology Group Ltd. and its subsidiaries. For more information, please visit www.Marvell.com.

 

 

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