ASUS implemented an interesting design with its high-end P7P55D Premium motherboard, that makes use of a PLX PEX8613 3-port/12-lane PCI-E 2.0 bridge chip across its PCI-E 1.1 x4 from the PCH to drive the Marvell 88SE9123 2-port SATA 6 Gbps controller to its full-potential. Apparently the company plans to provide SATA 6 Gbps support using essentially the same design, for all its Intel P55 series motherboards by means of an optional addon card. Much larger than the SATA 6 Gbps card from ASRock, the card from ASUS uses the same basic design that involves PLX PEX8613 as a PCI-E x4 device. The card uses the same SATA 6 Gbps controller to provide 2 internal SATA ports. From the looks of it, the card has placeholders for two controllers, with the second (absent) NEC µPD720200 controller providing USB 3.0 ports. Perhaps a future revision makes use of it. Planned to be offered as an optional accessory, this card could make for a premium over the base models.

ASRock chose a smart way to make SATA III part of its high-end motherboards' feature-set without modifying board design, or coming up with new SKUs, simply by bundling a SATA III addon-card. The company's upcoming P55 Deluxe advertises SATA III support, and packs a tiny, half-height card that uses PCI-Express (2.0?) x1 interface. At the heart of it is a Marvell 88SE9123 SATA III controller. The card has three ports in total, two angled internal ports, and one eSATA III. Headers are also provided for HDD status LEDs on the system chassis. While Marvell 88SE9123 has been at the center of controversy recently that reportedly caused some motherboard makers to pull out products that use it, Marvell maintains that the issue is only related to the controller's additional PATA-related functionality, and not SATA III. Now if only ASRock also bundles a USB 3.0 card.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today announces the first 2-bay network-attached storage (NAS) which supports both 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch SATA hard drives - TS-219P Turbo NAS. Dedicated to home and SOHO users, the TS-219P is an advanced version of the previously released TS-219. Powering Marvell 1.2GHz high performance processor and 512 MB DDRII memory, the NAS comes with 3 USB ports and 2 eSATA ports to deliver the best storage expansion capability compared with other 2-bay NAS in the market.

The TS-219P supports two hot-swappable 2.5" or 3.5" SATA hard drives with maximum 4TB storage capacity. The device can be accessed across Windows, Mac, Linux, and UNIX. It is a highly reliable and powerful NAS with abundant business-class features, such as built-in iSCSI target service (max 8 iSCSI devices) with Thin Provisioning, Online RAID Capacity Expansion, Online RAID Level Migration, automatic policy-based IP blocking, hard drive status report, instant SMS and email alert, built-in TwonkyMedia UPnP/ DLNA media server, BT and eMule download, schedule power on and power off, one Giga LAN port, and 2 IP cameras for network surveillance.

Marvell Semiconductor has come up with a marvel: the SheevaPlug computer software/hardware development kit (SHDK). The initiative puts to use the company's Sheeva ARM processor in a compact unit the size and form of a retro wall-mount AC-DC adapter. Consuming no more than 5 W of power, the unit can function as a full-featured PC, driving Linux. It packs a 1.2 GHz Sheeva ARM processor, 512 MB of RAM, and 512 MB of flash-based fixed storage.

Throwing open the development kit would mean companies wanting to build similar devices based on Marvell hardware. The SheevaPlug is built around the Marvell 88F6000 Kirkwood SoC design that makes use of Feroceon and XScale architectures, both of which are derivatives of ARM. Gigabit Ethernet and USB ports add to the connectivity. With several industry heavyweights such as Microsoft and Google predicting a bright future for cloud-computing, companies such as Marvell can only help but gain interest in developing inexpensive devices that drive the client-side machinery for it. Take a guess on how much SheevaPlug costs: US $100 in single unit retail quantities. What's more, it could be bought in bulk for as low as $50 a piece!

Marvell announced today at the International CES 2008 trade show, the Marvell TopDog 11n-450, an 802.11n 3x3 WLAN solution with three spatial streams, the industry's first 802.11n chip operating at 450 Megabits-per-second (Mbps.) With maximum bandwidth more than eight times faster than 802.11g 54 Mbps versions and 1.5 times faster than current 802.11n 300 Mbps offerings, the new product will enable significant performance enhancements for notebooks and desktop PCs, printers, routers, set top boxes, digital TVs, gaming devices and DVD players and recorders. The TopDog 11n-450 provides 500 percent increased range over 802.11g, as well as 160 percent increased range compared to competing 802.11n solutions.

Marvell today announced energy efficient digital power factor correction technology for power supplies that is designed to cut PC energy use and help reduce the carbon footprint by reducing the need to add more power plants. Based on Marvell's digital signal processing (DSP) and power management expertise, these new chips are expected to boost energy efficiency by aligning the current and voltage coming from the electrical outlet for optimal energy use by the PC. Today, more than half the power from the outlet is wasted as heat.