Samsung, Marvell develop SoC for 5G radios

Korean electronics giant Samsung said it has developed a new System-on-Chip for its Massive MIMO (ma-MIMO) and other advanced radios in partnership with American chipmaker Marvell which will be launched in Q2 2021 for Tier-One operations.

The new SoC is equipped to support both 4G and 5G networks simultaneously and aims to improve the capacity and coverage of cellular radios.

It is claimed to save up to 70 percent in chipset power consumption compared to previous solutions.

“We are excited to extend our collaboration with Marvell to unveil a new SoC that will combine both companies’ strengths in innovation to advance 5G network solutions,” said Junehee Lee, Executive Vice President and Head of R&D, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “We look forward to introducing this latest solution to the market shortly.”

Last year, the companies announced a collaboration to develop new 5G products, including innovative radio architectures for Massive MIMO deployments.

“We are again honored to work with Samsung for the next generation Massive MIMO radios which significantly raise the bar in terms of capacity, performance, and power efficiency,” said Raj Singh, Executive Vice President of Marvell’s Processors Business Group.

Samsung recently said it has won a 5G network contract with Japanese telco NTT Docomo Inc., as it seeks to challenge incumbents like Huawei, Ericsson, and Nokia in the telecom equipment business, according to media reports.

In India, Samsung Electronics is likely to apply for the Rs 12,195-crore production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for telecom gear manufacturing, benefiting from the federal program to locally make 4G and 5G gear and other equipment – for sales both in India and overseas, ET recently reported.

Samsung would then join other global manufacturers such as Cisco, Jabil, Flex and Foxconn, besides European telecom equipment vendors Nokia and Ericsson in applying for the PLI scheme that seeks to boost local production of telecom equipment and reduce imports.