Marvell and Hisense Introduce New Generation of Smart TVs and Set-top Boxes with Google TV

Jan. 8, 2013 – Marvell today announced that the award-winning Marvell ARMADA1500 series System-on-Chip (SoC) platform (88DE3100) is at the core of new Google TV products from Hisense, including the Hisense Pulse and the XT780 Smart TV series. Hisense’s expanding U.S. footprint underscores Marvell’s role in a growing global ecosystem for Google TV-enabled entertainment. Marvell and Hisense will demonstrate the new products – including the XT780, which has been recognized as a CES Innovations 2013 Design and Engineering Award Honoree – at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show.

“Our vision, belief and tireless efforts have enabled a breakthrough in Smart TVs by powering Google TVs with high-performance, high-quality, low-power and cost-effective semiconductor solutions for revolutionary entertainment experiences on the big Smart screen in homes around the world. Today, Marvell is extremely proud to see our hard work and collaboration with Google and our partner companies lead to the milestone of Hisense’s entry into the Smart TV market worldwide,” said Weili Dai, Co-Founder of Marvell. “I believe it will accelerate the adoption of big Smart screens to the masses, similar to the movement that led to the wide adoption of smartphones worldwide. We are very pleased to see Hisense, a leading global manufacturer, showcase the best that Marvell and Google have to offer on a world stage at CES, representing the company’s foray into the U.S. market.”

The Hisense Pulse with Google TV offers true plug-and-play versatility, with easy setup and connectivity right out of the box. Built on Android, Google TV delivers TV-optimized versions of consumers’ favorite Google services: Chrome, Google Play, Search, PrimeTime and YouTube. Similar to Google’s well-known Web search functionality, Google TV enables a new way to find the most relevant television content. Google TV can intuitively search and sort through millions of channels and shows across live television, content services, home networks, applications and the Web, discovering and delivering what is most meaningful to each viewer. Hisense also will be releasing a series of Smart TVs leveraging the Google TV platform in the first half of 2013, ranging in size from 42 inches to 65 inches, with a Qwerty remote control and touch pad. The new Google TV series will include breakthrough features such as Social TV and support for second screen displays.

“Hisense is very pleased to leverage Marvell’s turnkey Smart TV technology and the popularity of the Google TV platform as we set out to introduce our Smart Home solutions to the U.S. market,” said Peter Erdman, Vice President of consumer electronics, of Hisense USA. “The ARMADA 1500 chipset allows us to offer Smart TV products at an extremely competitive price point without sacrificing speed or quality. We’re confident consumers will enjoy a world-class digital entertainment experience made possible by the combined technical contributions of Hisense, Google and Marvell.”

“We continue to team with Google TV ecosystem partners such as Marvell to bring more ways to offer entertainment and Google services on your TV. With Marvell, we’re able to offer a growing array of products at attractive price points,” said Suveer Kothari, Director of Business Development for Google TV.

Powerful, energy-efficient, ultra-scalable and affordable, the ARMADA 1500 series SoC platform contains Marvell’s highest-performing ARM v7-compatible PJ4B SMP super-scalar dual-core CPU. The chip is designed to enable PC-like processing power to support Web browsing with support for Flash and other key technologies – with the aid of more than 6,000 Dhrystone MIPS of computing horsepower, FPU v3.0, 512 kilobytes (KB) of L2 cache and NEON. With advanced, cell phone-like power management, the platform is also incredibly energy-efficient.

The ARMADA 1500 also contains Marvell’s award-winning Qdeo video processing for state-of-the-art HD and 3D video, including scaling, noise reduction, de-interlacing, low bit-rate Internet video enhancement and FRC, and color/contrast enhancement. The chip offers VMeta™, a multi-format video decoder that can decode up to two simultaneous 1080p streams, as well as a host of other video formats and containers.