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Home / Technologies / System-on-Chip (SoC) / Marvell XScale PXA

Marvell PXA Family of Microcontrollers

Marvell XScale PXA family family of processors based on Intel® XScale technology is developed as low-cost chips with a wide choice of possibilities, software and pip-to-pin compatible and developed specially for target mobile communication devices : cell phones, PDAs, communicators, smartphones, tablet PCs. Marvell XScale microprocessors featured with a wide range of on-chip peripherals, extented instruction set support, low power design and small physical dimensions while expressing high performance.


Marvell PXA1xx Family

PXA168

In January 2009 Marvell presented a new PXA168 chip based on Sheeva processor core. PXA168 operates at frequencies up to 1 GHz, supports ARMv5TE/WMMX2 instruction set and capabilities of XScale architecture. The chip is manufactured by 65 nm technology in QFP-176 and BGA-320 packages, has L1 and L2 cache, external memory bus interface operating at frequencies up to 533 MHz and supporting LP-DDR1 and DDR2. Embedded hardware graphics accelerator supports MPEG-4 with resolution 1280x720 (720p) and H.264 with resolution D1 (720x486 for NTSC, 720x576 for PAL) on WUXGA high-resolution displays. It also has Qdeo Intelligent Color Remapping technology.

Architecture of Marvell PXA168 Processor

Features and Highlight

  • WMMX2 SIMD co-processor;
  • LCD support up to WUXGA resolution;
  • ITU-656 camera input;
  • Graphics acceleration;
  • PCI-e controller;
  • 10/100 Ethernet MAC;
  • USB 2.0 OTG, host and PHYs;
  • PWM;
  • Interfaces: UARTs, SSPs, IrDA, AC97, JTAG,OWSI è TWSI, 5-in-1 reader SD/MMC/CE-ATA, xD, Sony Memory Stick PR, CF.

This platform supports Windows CE and Linux operating systems. There is also a wide range of other software optimized for this chip:

  • Adobe Flash and Flash Lite™ players, On2 player, Sorenson player;
  • video codecs -- H.263, H.264, MPEG-1/2/4, WMV9, RMV with wrapper for AVI, MP4, ASF, 3GP, MPEG, MOV;
  • audio codecs -- WMA9, WAV, AAC, MP3, RMA with wrapper support for MP4, AVI;
  • graphical formats -- JPEG, GIF, BMP, JPEG2000, HDPhoto, EXIF;
  • GUI/widgets.

Focuses of Application for Marvell PXA1xx Family

  • Digital picture frames
  • Smartphones
  • Mobile phones
  • Mobile internet devices
  • Portable TV-sets
  • Media players
  • Netbooks.


Marvell PXA2xx Family

Marvell XScale PXA2 family of processors have backward compatible instruction set with ARM processor architecture and support ARMv5TE instruction set. Manufactured by 0.18um technology the Intel XScale core clocked at 200, 300 and 400MHz. Internal system bus runs at a half of the processor core frequency. A wide range of development and debugging tools (Performance Monitoring, Debug, JTAG) is available for Intel XScale processors. Effective power management can change the core frequency depending on CPU load. Intel XScale PXA255 processor is ideal candidate for battery powered communication devices which need LCD screen support.

PXA255

Features and Highlights

  • Low power and high performance 32bit RISC processor core at 200, 300 and 400 MHz
  • ARMv5TE instruction set compatibility
  • 0.18um manufacturing process
  • Optimized access to Intel StrataFlash memory
  • Extended temperature range from -40°C to 85°C
  • Built-in LCD controller

PXA270

Intel XScale PXA270 is an enhanced PXA255 with "Wireless MMX" and "QuickCapture" technologies and targeted at mobile devices with intensive multimedia processing: media players, navigation devices, gaming PDAs.

Features and Highlights

  • Increased performance of 32bit RISC processor core at 520MHz
  • "SpeedStep" technology - up to 5 power saving processor modes with changing voltage and core frequency
  • Improved LCD interface - 24-bit color support
  • "Wireless MMX" instruction set for accelerated multimedia processing
  • "QuickCapture" interface to megapixel cameras

Find out more about PXA270 on a primary Marvell site.


Marvell PXA3xx Family

Marvell PXA3xx family of processors based on Intel® XScale technology is developed as low-cost chips with a wide choice of possibilities, software and pip-to-pin compatible. These processors have high performance, extended Wireless MMX 2 instruction set, providing advanced possibilities for working with video and audio and also have power management module, extending batteries life. Wireless Intel SpeedStep technology gives a possibility to vary power consumption and play MP3 on a mobile phone or media player for 30 hours, or play video with D1 resolution (704x576) with frequency of 30 frames per second and encoded with H.264 algorithm meanwhile the battery discharges much more slowly.

PXA3xx support camera sensors up to 5 Megapixel and can automatically stabilize (capture) the image.

This family of processors allows the user to use Internet, listen to music or watch video via Bluetooth or WiFi. All representatives of this family have data cache and L1 instructions via 32 KB, LCD controller, keypad controller, WDT, RTC, PWM, JTAG, infrared receiver and the following interfaces: AC97/I2S, UART õ3, I2C x2, SSP x4, 1-wire, USIM x2.

Having backward compatibility with ARM architecture, these chips support a wide range of operating systems and allow easily porting ARM-oriented software.

The chips are produced using 90nm technology. This family is recommended for application in mobile phones, digital media players, GPS navigators and embedded systems.

PXA300

Features and Highlights

  • CPU frequency – up to 624 MHz;
  • DDR x16 bit;
  • 2D graphics accelerator and a 256KB frame buffer;
  • SD/SDIO/MMC õ2;
  • USB 2.0 High-Speed Device controller;
  • USB 1.1 Full-Speed OTG and Device controller with transceiver;
  • USB 1.1 Full-Speed Host interface.

PXA310

Features and Highlights

  • CPU frequency – up to 624 MHz;
  • LPDDR x16 bit;
  • 2D graphics accelerator and a 256 KB frame buffer;
  • hardware decoding of JPEG, H.264, MPEG-4, MPEG-2, WMV9 with frequency up to 30 frames per second and resolution up to D1(720x576);
  • SD/SDIO/MMC õ3;
  • USB 2.0 controller with High-Speed Device + Full-Speed Host;
  • USB 1.1 Full-Speed Host interface.
Architecture of Marvell PXA310 Processor

PXA320

Features and Highlights

  • CPU frequency – up to 806 MHz;
  • 256KB L2 cache;
  • DDR õ32 bit;
  • 2D graphics accelerator and a 768KB frame buffer;
  • Touch Screen interface controller;
  • SD/SDIO/MMC õ2;
  • USB 2.0 High-Speed Device controller;
  • USB 1.1 Full-Speed OTG and Device controller with transceiver;
  • USB 1.1 Full-Speed Host interface.

Focuses of Application for Marvell PXA3xx Family

  • Smartphones
  • Pocket computers (PDA)
  • Mobile phones
  • GPS-navigators
  • Communicators
  • Mobile devices