Marvell OCTEON DPU family joins Evenstar Program to supply OpenRAN distributed unit designs

SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Marvell (NASDAQ:MRVL), today announced that it will join the Evenstar program and work with Facebook Connectivity to provide a 4G/5G OpenRAN Distributed Unit (DU) design for Evenstar, based on the industry-leading OCTEON Fusion® baseband processors and Arm-based OCTEON® multi-core digital processing units (DPUs). The Evenstar DU design will enable a new generation of RAN suppliers to deliver high performance, cost-optimized, interoperable DU products to the rapidly expanding OpenRAN ecosystem.

Marvell will supply a fully integrated DU reference board featuring the OCTEON Fusion-O baseband, providing 4G and 5G PHY layer processing and an OCTEON DPU to run software functions. Facebook Connectivity will collaborate with Marvell to enable software operations on this solution and encourage multiple third parties to port protocol stack software as well. The DU supports up to 16 downlink layers at 100 MHz channelization with 10 Gbps downlink and 5Gbps uplink performance. The goal is to have Evenstar DU equipment ready for network operator trials next year.

The Evenstar program is a collaborative effort focused on building general-purpose RAN reference architecture for 4G and 5G networks in the OpenRAN ecosystem. The DU design is Evenstar’s second major OpenRAN initiative following its successful radio unit (RU) design introduction in 2020. By decoupling the RU, DU, and control unit (CU) functions while ensuring interoperability among different vendors’ offerings, mobile network operators will have the ability to select best-of-breed components and the flexibility to deploy solutions that best address their requirements.

“Marvell demonstrated its commitment to OpenRAN by introducing our O-RAN Platform in December 2020 based on our industry-leading OCTEON Fusion architecture,” said Raj Singh, executive vice president of the Processors Business Group at Marvell. “We also realize that the key to success – not just for our platform, but for the industry as a whole – involves collaboration such as this Evenstar DU engagement with Facebook Connectivity and other partners. We look forward to delivering a high performance, cost-optimized DU design that supports the capacity and interoperability requirements necessary to deploy versatile, next-generation networks by the operator community.”

“We are excited to welcome Marvell’s DU contribution to the Evenstar program,” said Jaydeep Ranade, director of wireless engineering for Facebook Connectivity. “Marvell’s experience in baseband and DPU processors is a great addition to Evenstar as we work together to accelerate the adoption of high performance, innovative OpenRAN solutions globally.”