The world’s first automotive-grade System-on-Chip

Marvell extends a complete product portfolio of Ethernet and wireless automotive connectivity solutions with fourth generation family of wireless SoCs enabling advanced infotainment, telematics and WiFi gateways for the connected car.

Marvell has announced the 88W8987xA, the world’s first automotive-grade System-on-Chip (SoC) to integrate the latest WiFi, Bluetooth, and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) capabilities. This highly sophisticated wireless combo chip brings an industry-best solution for in-car WiFi, Bluetooth 5 and 802.11p.

Today’s connected cars have an unprecedented need for reliable and high-performance wireless connectivity. In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI), secure telematics, in-car wireless gateways, and enhanced safety capabilities are dramatically increasing costs and complexity across every automotive segment. Marvell’s 88W8987xA family of footprint-compatible solutions enables car manufacturers to simplify wireless enablement and quickly offer market-leading capabilities to their customers. Built on Marvell’s experience in delivering reliable, robust and secure automotive technology, the fourth generation of wireless combo solutions has been feature-optimized for the automotive market and meets the highest quality AEC-Q100 grade 2 standards.

“Today’s automobiles demand new levels of performance, safety, and reliability and their owners expect the latest wireless features. Marvell’s 88W8987xA provides the industry’s most advanced single-chip solution to accelerate and simplify large-scale automotive deployment of the features customers expect in their connected cars,” said Mark Montierth, Vice President and General Manager, Wireless Connectivity Business Unit at Marvell Semiconductor, Inc.

The 88W8987xA family of wireless products complements our previously announced 88Q2112 automotive Ethernet physical layer (PHY) transceiver to provide a complete wired and wireless connectivity solution for the connected car. The 88Q2112 enables 1000BASE-T1 gigabit Ethernet over a single twisted pair copper cable, making it an ideal, lightweight solution for distributing HD video, audio and voice for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and IVI applications.

Christian Kim, senior analyst, IHS Markit said: “The development of Marvell’s 88W8987xA family of footprint-compatible wireless solutions represents important progress for the automotive industry. With today’s automobiles becoming increasingly complex, Marvell’s new portfolio could go a long way to standardizing the development of connected cars – simplifying integration processes and helping to reduce costs.*”

In addition to supporting the growing needs of IVI and emerging screen projection technologies, the 88W8987xA’s 802.11p features will enable a new era of safety and autonomous driving by supporting pending National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)/Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) and Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) requirements. The 88W8987xA is also the first wireless combo solution supporting Bluetooth 5 including Bluetooth Low Energy Angle of Arrival and Departure (AoA/AoD) and 802.11mc which will enable new and exciting use-models for automakers with wearables and phones to support new access, personalization and car location services.

The 88W8987xA provides flexibility for system design and is interoperable with a wide selection of host SoCs, hardware HSMs, WAVE (1609.x) stacks and operating systems. 88W8987xA drivers are readily available for the Android platform, Linux and QNX.

The 88W8987xA family of footprint-compatible wireless solutions include:

• 802.11ac + Qualified Bluetooth 5 Functionality (88W8987A)
• 802.11p + Qualified Bluetooth 5 Functionality (88W8987PA)
• Switchable 802.11ac/802.11p + Qualified Bluetooth 5 Functionality (88W8987SA)

Benefits of the 88W8987xA family include:

• Bluetooth 5.0 Support
  • Bluetooth Low Energy Angle of Arrival and Departure (AoA/AoD) and 802.11mc for multi-modal enhanced intelligent distance and location detection for the automotive market
• 802.11p
  • WAVE (1609.x) stack independence
• Wi-Fi o 1×1 802.11ac Wave 2
  • MU-MIMO
  • Virtual dual-MAC
• Multiple Coexistence Mechanisms ensure optimized performance in various applications
  • Bluetooth 5 and WLAN Coexistence – Physically & Logically Optimized and Self-Managed
  • WLAN and LTE/LTE-A Coexistence – Logically Optimized via Mobile Wireless Coexistence Interface
• Integrated power amplifiers that operate at AEC-Q100 Grade 2 temperatures (-40 to +105°C) degrees providing the highest levels of integration while still allowing for the use of external amplifiers for ultimate system flexibility in higher power systems.