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Archive for September, 2023

  • September 22, 2023

    Product security is paramount to us: A response to recent Cavium product security concerns 

    By Raghib Hussain, President, Products and Technologies, Marvell

    To our Valued Customers:

    Recently, reports have surfaced alleging that certain Cavium products included a “backdoor” for the National Security Agency (NSA). We assure you that neither Cavium nor Marvell have ever knowingly incorporated or retained any vulnerability or backdoor in our products.

    Our products implement a suite of standards-based security algorithms like AES, 3DES, SHA etc. Prior to 2014, some of our software libraries included an algorithm for random number generation called Dual_EC_DRGB. This algorithm was one of four officially recommended at the time by the US National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) that our products implemented. In 2013, this algorithm was reported by the New York Times, The Guardian, and ProPublica to include a backdoor for the NSA. After we learned of the potential issue, Cavium removed this algorithm from its software libraries and has not included it in any product shipped since then. 

    Importantly, the Dual_EC_DRGB algorithm was included in some of Cavium’s software libraries for our chip-level products, but not in the chips themselves.  As a result, while Cavium provided this algorithm (among many), the ultimate choice and control over the algorithms being used was managed by the equipment vendors integrating our products into their system level products. Many companies, not just Cavium, implemented the NIST standard algorithms including this algorithm. In fact, according to NIST’s historical validation data, approximately 80 different products with semiconductors from different vendors implemented this algorithm in some combination of hardware, software, and firmware before it was removed.

  • September 11, 2023

    Automotive Central Switches: The Latest Step in the Evolution of Cars

    By Amir Bar-Niv, VP of Marketing, Automotive Business Unit, Marvell

    When you hear people refer to cars as “data centers on wheels,” they’re usually thinking about how an individual experiences enhanced digital capabilities in a car, such as streaming media on-demand or new software-defined services for enhancing the driving experience.

    But there’s an important implication lurking behind the statement. For cars to take on tasks that require data center-like versatility, they need to be built like data centers. Automakers in conjunction with hardware makers and software developers are going to have to develop a portfolio of highly specialized technologies that work together, based around similar architectural concepts, to deliver the capabilities needed for the software-defined vehicle while at the same time keeping power and cost to a minimum. It’s not an easy balancing act.

    Which brings us to the emergence of a new category of products for the zonal architecture, specifically zonal and the associated automotive central Ethernet switches. Today’s car networks are built around domain localized networks: speakers, video screens and other infotainment devices link to the infotainment ECU, while powertrain and brakes are part of the body domain, and ADAS domain is based on the sensors and high-performance processors. Bandwidth and security can be form-fitted to the application.

  • September 05, 2023

    800G: An Inflection Point for Optical Networks

    By Samuel Liu, Senior Director, Product Line Management, Marvell

    Digital technology has what you could call a real estate problem. Hyperscale data centers now regularly exceed 100,000 square feet in size. Cloud service providers plan to build 50 to 100 edge data centers a year and distributed applications like ChatGPT are further fueling a growth of data traffic between facilities. Similarly, this explosive surge in traffic also means telecommunications carriers need to upgrade their wired and wireless networks, a complex and costly undertaking that will involve new equipment deployment in cities all over the world.

    Weaving all of these geographically dispersed facilities into a fast, efficient, scalable and economical infrastructure is now one of the dominant issues for our industry.

    Pluggable modules based on coherent digital signal processors (CDSPs) debuted in the last decade to replace transponders and other equipment used to generate DWDM compatible optical signals. These initial modular products didn’t offer the same performance as the incumbent solutions, and could only be deployed in limited use cases. These early modules, with their large form factors, had performance limitations and did not support the required high-density data transmission. Over time, advances in technology optimized the performance of pluggable modules, and CDSP speeds grew from 100 to 200 and 400 Gbps. Continued innovation, and the development of an open ecosystem, helped expand the potential applications.

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