At MWC 2022 last week, Marvell announced new 5G Open RAN DU and RU solutions with customers and partners powered by the company's flagship OCTEON Fusion baseband processor, featuring a comprehensive suite of 5G Layer 1 (L1) inline hardware accelerators and O-RAN standards support. These new open, virtualized DU and massive MIMO RU solutions, which build on Marvell's reference designs, augment traditional 5G RAN solutions that are globally deployed using the same OCTEON Fusion processors and bring high performance and power efficiency to cloud-native 5G.
The announcements include the following:
- Dell Technologies Announces New Open RAN Accelerator Card Developed in Collaboration with Marvell. The new Dell Open RAN Accelerator Card is a cloud-optimized vRAN Distributed Unit (DU) solution with a proven, carrier-grade baseband processor – Marvell's OCTEON Fusion platform – that incorporates comprehensive inline 5G Layer 1 acceleration and was on display at the Dell Technologies exhibition stand (#3M30, Hall 3).
- Analog Devices (ADI) and Marvell Collaborate on Massive MIMO for 5G OpenRAN. ADI's MWC exhibition stand (#2F25, Hall 2) featured a demonstration of a 32T32R Massive MIMO C-band Radio Unit (RU) powered by Marvell's industry-leading OCTEON Fusion baseband processor and beamforming technology.
- Arm to Showcase the Arm-based Marvell OCTEON Fusion-Powered Open RAN Accelerator platform. The Marvell-designed 5G Open vRAN card, which builds on its extensive compute collaboration with Arm and enables best-in-class 5G RAN features and performance in an open and virtualized data center environment, was on display at the Arm MWC exhibition stand (#5A19, Hall 5).
"Our extensive industry collaborations and Open RAN solutions showcased at Mobile World Congress position Marvell at the forefront of 5G evolution for the new world of cloud-scale, next-generation networks," said Raj Singh, executive vice president, Processor Business Unit at Marvell. "Anchored by a commitment to open standards and no-compromise design principles, Marvell is thrilled to be working closely with key ecosystem partners to accelerate innovation and unlock the immense market opportunity for new 5G services."
"Industry collaboration is key to driving the open ecosystem forward, and our work with Marvell will help network operators build scalable and cloud-native open networks that can capture new edge opportunities," said Dennis Hoffman, senior vice president and general manager, Dell Technologies Telecom Systems Business. "Our Open RAN Accelerator brings the same Marvell baseband silicon technology and performance of today's leading 5G radio networks to the open ecosystem, giving communications service providers another alternative to scaling modern, open-architecture radio access networks with better performance, power- and cost-efficiency."
"This new virtualized RAN solution from Dell and Marvell is a game-changer for carriers looking to evolve their 5G RAN to a cloud-native architecture," said Stéphane Téral, chief analyst, LightCounting. "By combining widely-deployed 5G baseband silicon with a cloud-optimized architecture, Dell and Marvell have developed a disruptive solution that is backed by their credibility as established leaders in RAN silicon, data center and telecom infrastructure. This promises to elevate performance and power efficiency while invigorating the Open RAN ecosystem."
Powered by the OCTEON Fusion baseband processor, Marvell is enabling no-compromise Open RAN solutions with a unique combination of advantages as compared to existing alternatives:
- comprehensive, inline 5G Layer 1 hardware acceleration,
- a 5G baseband processor that is globally proven in the leading 5G carrier networks and shipping in high volume, and
- a cloud-optimized architecture that leverages open standards, open-source software tools and techniques that are widely used in hyperscale data centers.
To meet the demands of next-generation infrastructure for 5G and beyond, Marvell is empowering carrier, cloud and enterprise ecosystems with a comprehensive silicon portfolio supporting integrated, open and virtualized RAN with leading baseband, compute, security, electro-optics and Ethernet switching platforms.
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