Marvell Introduces Plug Computing

Marvell has announced its Plug Computing initiative to make high-performance, always on, always connected, and environmentally friendly computing readily available for developers and end-users. A Plug Computer is small enough to plug directly into a wall socket and is designed to draw so little power that it can be left on all of the time. Unlike other embedded devices in the home, it contains a gigahertz class processor to offer PC class performance. This makes it a viable alternative to a PC for any software service.

"There is no doubt that home networks need to become more intelligent and easier to use by offering value added services for the consumer," said Dr. Simon Milner, Vice President and General Manager of the Enterprise Business Unit, Consumer and Communications Business Group at Marvell Semiconductor. "We have created an open computing platform for developers in a consumer and eco-friendly form factor. Marvell's goal is to accelerate the development and availability of innovative software and services in the home."

The SheevaPlug development platform uses a Marvell Kirkwood processor based on an embedded 1.2GHz Sheeva CPU equipped with 512 Mbytes of FLASH and 512 Mbytes of DRAM. Connection to the home network is via Gigabit Ethernet. Peripherals such as direct attached storage can be connected using a USB 2.0 port. Multiple standard Linux 2.6 kernel distributions are supported on the SheevaPlug development platform enabling rapid application development. The enclosure is designed to plug directly into a standard wall socket and is designed to draw less than one tenth of the power of a typical PC being used as a home server.


"Plug computing is a logical evolution for the digital home in the same way enterprise applications moved from servers to network appliances," Mr. Hajime Nakai, Director, Member of the Board, BUFFALO INC. "Marvell is probably the only company that can pack so much processor performance into such a compact form factor."

"Marvell is a leader in designing high-performance, power-efficient CPUs," commented Linley Gwennap, principal analyst of The Linley Group. "SheevaPlug leverages this capability to deliver an impressive amount of compute performance in an innovative form factor. As a silicon provider, Marvell is providing a flexible platform for a wide variety of applications that serves both consumers and service providers."


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