Marvell teams with E Ink for turnkey ereader processor
By Darren Murph 
posted Nov 3rd 2009 11:17AM
posted Nov 3rd 2009 11:17AM
And so it begins. If you had any doubts whatsoever that the ereader battle was in full effect, let this introduction take all of that worry away. Marvell and E Ink have tag-teamed in order to announce a "highly integrated" ereader processor that'll be made available in "turnkey platforms" aimed at the booming ebook reader market. The ARMADA package includes a 166E application processor, WiFi, Bluetooth and 3G modem, and more broadly, the two have agreed to cross license epaper "timing controllers and system platforms," which may or may not be the cutest, sweetest thing we've ever heard. The goods are expected to be ready for readers in 2010, which means that buying a Kindle or Nook today is guaranteed to cause you all sorts of pain when the next best thing ships within twelve months.
I read "Marvel". I thought "comics are coming to ereaders?!?
I reread it correctly. I was bored.
Yeah... I also don't get it. I mean, consumers don't have the disposable income we did in the booming 1990s. And we all already carry computers around with us. Just sell me a subscription to the ebook service or let me check out temporary ebooks from the library for free, using my computer. I don't want to buy another device and computers are already available light enough to carry everywhere.
YES! Get those processors supped up...you know..make sure it can handle all that 2-bit color text!!!
Seriously though...what applications could you productively run on a screen with a half-second refresh time.
Crysis?
Kinda old news:
Aug. 13, 2009:
"...Marvell, says the company will soon release a chip set he calls "a complete solution for e-books."
The chips will include wireless circuitry, along with power management chips and a controller chip for the e-paper display.
Manghnani says Marvell is shipping to customers, but wouldn't yet name them.
E-book reader sales are being helped by improved power usage. Today's e-books typically hold a battery charge for two to four weeks, compared with just days for earlier versions.
While Kindle and Sony dominate the market, they have competition. One pending e-reader generating a lot of buzz, in part because users can roll up its flexible screen, is from startup Plastic Logic. Due out early next year, bookstore chain Barnes & Noble (NYSE:BKS - News) will be the exclusive seller. The companies haven't disclosed the chip suppliers for the device.
But already on the market are e-book readers from Philips Electronics (NYSE:PHG - News) spinoff IRex Technologies and from China's STAReTek, called the STAReBook. There's also the FLEPia from Fujitsu, the Cybook Opus from France's Bookeen and a reader from Polymer Vision, which like IRex is based in the Netherlands.
Manghnani says more than 20 companies are designing e-book readers. At least half of them plan to launch between now and the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, he says.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Qualcomm-Freescale-Among-ibd-2319881367.html?x=0&.v=1
Why do we need another e-reader on the market? We've already got a number of good e-readers.
If every publisher and retailer makes an e-reader specifically for them, how many of us would want to buy 15 different readers?
What a dumb comment. Why do we need all the different cars we have? Why do we need all the different computers on the market? Why are there so many different books? Why not just roll them into one, giant book, and we'll call it "Book for Dummies."
Jason: except that you can drive any car you buy on nearly every road in the country. Each ebook reader uses a different ebook format.
FYI all these e-readers have some kind of DRM going on for purchased books. This is going to lock in the early Kindle people and probably ruin the market for years to come.
You know its almost Thanksgiving when you read this in the title.
Marvell teams with E Ink for turkey eater processor
I seriously did a double take.
I'm hungry.
Hope it´ll turn out better than some of their other hardware.
The Marvell Yukon is pretty much the most annoying piece of network hardware to be found in consumer computers.