SANTA CLARA, CA, Apr 3, 2024 – Marvell Technology, Inc., a leader in data infrastructure semiconductor solutions, announced Marvell Nova 2, the industry’s first 1.6 Tbps PAM4 optical DSP featuring 200 Gbps electrical and optical interfaces to meet the escalating performance demands of accelerated infrastructure, generative AI, and high-performance computing.

Marvell also announced that the flagship Nova optical DSP, a 1.6 Tbps device with 100 Gbps electrical and 200 Gbps optical interfaces announced last year, is now generally available. It will be showcased at the Marvell Booth (#2225) at OFC 2024 taking place this week in San Diego, California.

A breakthrough in optical connectivity technology, 1.6T Nova optical DSPs enable module manufacturers to develop a wide range of industry-standard form factor optical modules that deliver 2x more bandwidth than current 800 Gbps optical modules for the transition to 200G interfaces in accelerated infrastructure. Doubling optical module and interface bandwidth greatly increases the amount of network traffic that can be managed within the same physical space, thereby paving a pathway to scale capacity and increase return on infrastructure investments.

“200 Gbps signaling will be a defining feature for the next wave of AI clusters and cloud data centers and provide the performance needed to deliver services based on generative AI and large language models,” said Xi Wang, Ph.D., vice president of product marketing for Optical Connectivity at Marvell. “The latest advancements in our Nova product family extend our longstanding leadership in PAM4 optical DSP technology to advance the industry towards next-generation cloud data center architectures.”

Optical Technology for Accelerating Infrastructure

The intensive bandwidth and performance demands of AI and cloud workloads are fundamentally transforming, and accelerating, data infrastructure architectures. Bandwidth capacity in the cloud, measured by Ethernet ports shipped, continues to increase at over 50% per year while bandwidth for AI applications is growing at over 100% per year¹.

Optical DSP technology is critical for assuring signal integrity in high-speed, large and complex optical networks. The increasing need for greater connectivity bandwidth, the increasing size of AI clusters and cloud data centers, and the greater distances between nodes mean that optical DSPs are becoming more pervasive and more performant.

“Networking and connectivity are the linchpin for AI,” said Alan Weckel, co-founder of 650 Group. “We are seeing increased focus on the performance of switches and optical modules by hyperscale cloud providers because they understand that networking performance is absolutely vital to the success of these new services. Nova 2 is the latest milestone for Marvell and the industry.”

The Nova family leverages four generations of proven industry leading PAM4 optical DSP technology from Marvell. Newly announced Nova 2 features eight 200 Gbps electrical lanes to the host device and eight 200 Gbps optical lanes to interface with a wide range of optical components to enable 1.6T total bandwidth that can fit inside standardized module form factors utilizing eight electrical lanes. Nova 2 based optical modules support backward compatibility for up to three generations. Nova 2 is designed for next-generation AI networking fabric infrastructure where switches, network interface cards (NIC), and accelerators will be based with 200 Gbps I/O interfaces. The first flagship Nova device is designed for connecting devices based with 100 Gbps electrical I/O interfaces, used in clouds today.

“Marvell is once again bringing an industry-first 1.6T optical DSP to the pluggable optics ecosystem and delivering the connectivity speed needed to tackle the most demanding AI workloads,” said Osa Mok, chief marketing officer, InnoLight Technology. “The Marvell Nova 2 DSP, combined with InnoLight’s high-speed optical transceiver design and manufacturing capabilities, brings to the industry a state-of-the-art pluggable module for doubling bandwidth capacity for the growing performance requirements of data center infrastructure.”

Key features of the Nova 2 electro-optics platform include:

• 200 Gbps per lane line-side transmitter interface supporting a wide range of high-speed lasers
• 200 Gbps per lane line-side receiver with companion Marvell TIAs, providing best-in-class linearity and low noise
• Integrated laser drivers, optimizing power dissipation and transmit performance
• Latency-optimized FEC for 200 Gbps traffic

Availability

The Marvell 1.6T Nova 2 optical DSP with 200 Gbps electrical and optical interfaces is sampling in the second quarter of 2024 to select customers. The Marvell 1.6T Nova optical DSP with 100 Gbps electrical and 200 Gbps optical interfaces is generally available.

About Marvell

To deliver the data infrastructure technology that connects the world, they’re building solutions on the most powerful foundation: our partnerships with their customers. Trusted by the world’s leading technology companies for over 25 years, we move, store, process and secure the world’s data with semiconductor solutions designed for customers’ current needs and future ambitions.

For more information, visit www.marvell.com.

EINDHOVEN, Netherlands, Apr 1, 2024 – NXP Semiconductors N.V., the worldwide leader in automotive processing, breaks through the integration barriers for next-generation software-defined vehicle (SDV) development with the introduction of its S32 CoreRide platform. The new industry-first vehicle software platform greatly simplifies complex vehicle architecture development and cuts costs for automakers and tier-1 suppliers.

The S32 CoreRide platform brings together NXP’s established S32 compute, networking, system power management and ready-to-deploy software from the company’s extensive software partner ecosystem. The company is also unveiling its first S32 CoreRide solution for central compute based on NXP’s new S32N family of vehicle super-integration processors. It offers safe and scalable combinations of real-time and applications processing as well as vehicle networking.

The rise of SDVs introduces promising yet challenging paths forward. A new software-defined approach is imminent as upgradable features and new revenue streams are in demand across vehicle fleets. The proliferation of hardware-defined variants across different vehicle classes has become impractical to maintain in the modern vehicle architecture development flow.

S32 CoreRide platform: integration and consolidation

NXP’s S32 CoreRide platform represents the next milestone in overcoming the software and hardware integration challenges blocking fast adoption of SDVs. Automakers have struggled to move functions from the traditional multi-ECU to zoned or centralized processing due to software and architectural inconsistencies. The new platform integrates NXP’s broad hardware portfolio with software from the world’s leading automotive experts across a comprehensive ecosystem, including Accenture ESR Labs, ArcherMind, Blackberry QNX, Elektrobit, ETAS, Green Hills Software, Sonatus, Synopsys, TTTech Auto, Vector Informatik GmbH, and Wind River as well as tier-1 suppliers like Valeo.

Leveraging the scalable S32 compute in the S32 CoreRide platform, OEMs can consolidate ECUs and develop flexible architectures, from domain to zonal to centralized, that scale across vehicle classes and generations. The platform provides the ability to isolate vehicle functions, helping to ensure freedom from interference between each application and dynamically re-allocate resources so applications do not degrade in performance as they evolve over time. This level of integration and flexibility advances carmakers and tier-1 suppliers to the next point in their development since they can now utilize the S32 CoreRide platform to put more focus on differentiation and the creation of application software for new business models.

“The automotive industry’s shift to software-defined vehicles presents unprecedented levels of disruption,” said Henri Ardevol, executive vice president and general manager, automotive embedded systems at NXP. “In the last decade, many industries have successfully adopted faster innovation cycles and effectively achieved higher performance at lower cost through tight integration of silicon and software. With NXP’s S32 CoreRide platform, automakers can now radically transform their approach to SDV development by adopting a much faster, open development path.”

First S32 CoreRide solutions for central compute based on new S32N family

NXP also introduces its first solutions in the S32 CoreRide platform: the central compute solution based on the new S32N family of vehicle super-integration processors, advanced vehicle networking, system power management, and pre-integrated software from the S32 CoreRide open partner ecosystem. The central compute solution allows automakers to safely and easily integrate many cross-vehicle functions running in isolation-ready execution environments enabled by the S32N family’s automotive-grade hardware isolation capabilities.

The scalable S32N family, purpose-built for the highest level of automotive functional safety, offers multiple combinations of real-time and applications processing cores to meet a wide range of automakers’ central compute needs. All S32N devices integrate an advanced hardware security engine and multi-port TSN Ethernet switch and CAN hub, with some also supporting Ethernet packet acceleration, AI/ML acceleration, and cost-effective, inter-compute PCI Express services.

The S32 CoreRide central compute solution is optimized to meet the network bandwidth, power delivery requirements and targets ISO 26262 ASIL D functional safety requirements. It can unlock the benefits of SDVs by providing vehicle data intelligence for streamlining deployment and monetization of enhanced capabilities and new services over a vehicle’s lifetime.

Learn more about the central compute solution and the new S32N family.

Availability

NXP is engaged with automakers and Tier 1s today with initial offerings of the S32 CoreRide platform. Production vehicles leveraging S32 CoreRide capabilities are in development today. First production vehicles are expected to ramp up in 2027.

About NXP Semiconductors

NXP Semiconductors N.V. brings together bright minds to create breakthrough technologies that make the connected world better, safer and more secure. As a world leader in secure connectivity solutions for embedded applications, NXP is pushing boundaries in the automotive, industrial & IoT, mobile, and communication infrastructure markets while delivering solutions that advance a more sustainable future. Built on more than 60 years of combined experience and expertise, the company has approximately 34,200 team members in more than 30 countries and posted revenue of $13.28 billion in 2023.

Find out more at www.nxp.com.

KAWASAKI, Japan, Mar 28, 2024 – Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corp. (Toshiba) has started volume shipments of the SmartMCD Series of gate driver^[1] ICs with embedded microcontroller (MCU). The first product, “TB9M003FG,” is suitable for sensorless control of three-phase brushless DC motors used in automotive applications, including water and oil pumps, fans and blowers.

Toshiba: SmartMCD Series gate driver ICs with embedded microcontroller (Graphic: Business Wire)

TB9M003FG combines a microcontroller (Arm Cortex-M0), flash memory, power control functions and communications interface functions into a gate driver that controls and drives N-ch power MOSFETs for three-phase brushless DC motor drives. This integration will reduce system sizes and component counts while realizing advanced and complex motor control for a wide variety of automotive motor applications. The new product also incorporates Toshiba’s proprietary vector engine, hardware for sensorless sinewave control, reducing the load on the microcontroller, and the size of the software.

A reference design using TB9M003FG, “Motor Driving Circuit for Automotive Body Electronics Using SmartMCD,” is now available on Toshiba’s website.

Toshiba: Reference Design “Motor Driving Circuit for Automotive Body Electronics Using SmartMCD” with TB9M003FG (Graphic: Business Wire)

The expanding market for electric vehicles (xEV) requires electrification, component integration, downsized electronic control unit (ECUs), and quieter motors. In response, the new product contributes to downsizing of ECUs by integrating a microcontroller into the gate driver, and to quieter motors by using vector control.

^{Note: [1] Gate driver: A driver to drive MOSFETs}

Applications
Automotive

• Water pumps
• Oil pumps
• Fans
• Blowers, etc.

Features

• Sensorless control gate driver IC for three-phase brushless DC motor (built-in charge pump circuit)
• 32bit MCU (Arm Cortex-M0), operation frequency: 40MHz (built-in low-speed/high-speed oscillator)
• Built-in memories
  Flash: 64Kbytes; ROM: 12Kbytes; RAM: 4KBytes
• Built-in vector engine and programmable motor driver
• Built-in 1-shunt resistor current sense amplifier, 12-bit A/D converter and 10-bit A/D converter
• Various detection circuits
  Current limiter, over current, Vbat overvoltage, over temperature, etc.
• Communications method: LIN and PWM communications selectable, UART
• AEC-Q100 (Grade 0), automotive-electronic-component-certification qualified.

Main Specifications

Follow the link below for more on the new product.
TB9M003FG

Follow the link below for more on Toshiba’s automotive motor drivers.
Analog Devices

About Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corp.

Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corp., a leading supplier of advanced semiconductor and storage solutions, draws on over half a century of experience and innovation to offer customers and business partners outstanding discrete semiconductors, system LSIs and HDD products.

The company’s 21,500 employees around the world share a determination to maximize product value, and promote close collaboration with customers in the co-creation of value and new markets. With annual sales approaching 800-billion yen (US$6.1 billion), Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation looks forward to building and to contributing to a better future for people everywhere.

For more information, visit website.