Its latest effort is a new Armada SoC, the PXA 1928 and it is targeted at low- to mid-range smartphones. It features a quad-core Cortex A53 processor backed by Vivante’s GC5000 GPU. In addition, it also brings 5-band LTE support.
The Avastar 88W8887 chip is also part of the platform and it features 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity. The platform even includes an FM radio, which is still a nice addition to any smartphone, especially a cheap smartphone with no unlimited data plan.
Although Marvell pretty much ceded the high-end market to Qualcomm, the new part is interesting. So far we’ve seen several 64-bit SoCs destined for cheap devices and the focus of MWC appears to be shifting from high-end gear to mid- and low-end devices.
The market is maturing – not everyone needs a pricey superphone with more processing power than PCs of yesteryear. A quad A53 is good enough for many users, especially in emerging markets.
