Cavium Networks and Axentra Collaborate

Cavium Networks, provider of semiconductor products that enable intelligent processing for networking, communications and the digital home, and Axentra, developer of software solutions for the home media server market, announced availability of a home media server reference design.

Cavium Networks and Axentra have developed an integrated digital media solution engineered to accelerate and simplify the development of OEM products for the consumer storage and home server markets. The low power, secure Home Server uses Axentra’s HipServ solution, and achieves new industry benchmarks for performance, low power consumption, scalability, and low cost by leveraging Cavium’s ECONA CNS3XXX processor family. This reference design provides performance in a pre-integrated form factor to enable quickest time-to-market for ODMs and OEMs developing products for Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Home Media Server (HMS) markets.

The ECONA CNS3XXX family of ARM-based energy efficient processors offers single and dual ARM11 MPCore processors, a set of integrated hardware accelerators and a range of I/Os for glueless voice, video and data connectivity. Sophisticated power management techniques enable super low-power operation starting at less than 1 watt. The ECONA CNS3XXX family is targeted for applications including FTTH broadband gateways, network attached storage appliances, multimedia picture frames, media and print servers, IP cameras and wireless access points. With dynamic power management and low standby power, these processors are tailor-made for devices compliant with the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) and UPnP AV standards that have very stringent power consumption requirements.

Axentra’s HipServ product provides easy-to-use Home Media Servers. With support for seamless upload, download and sharing of multi-media content within and outside of the digital home, HipServ 2.3 has extended its leadership to provide solution for the consumers. HipServ 2.3 enables streaming of music, display photos or play music on any connected, DLNA-enabled device in the home. HipServ 2.3 enables intelligent management of other home-based devices such as internet video and surveillance cameras. HipServ2.3 has been optimized to exploit the power of Cavium’s ECONA CNS3XXX dual ARM core assisted by multiple purpose-build hardware accelerators. This integrated solution provides scalability in terms of CPU headroom available for multiple services for the digital home.

"Cavium’s newest family of ARM-based processors extends our leadership in high-performance, energy-efficient embedded processing to consumer storage and home server applications with this integration of HipServ technology from Axentra," said Manoj Gujral, VP and GM of Broadband and Consumer Division at Cavium. "This integrated solution gives OEMs and service providers a compelling and exceptionally competitive platform that is market-ready for quick time-to-revenue."

"HipServ will unify and simplify how consumers save, show, sync and share their personal digital media, in the home or remotely," said Marc-Antoine Benglia, CEO of Axentra. "Running HipServ on the ECONA platform just further enhances the consumer experience."

Benefits for OEMs and service providers Cavium’s multi-core ARM-based SoCs combined with Axentra’s HipServ technology, provide performance with accelerated time-to-market. Service providers and OEMs utilizing comprehensive digital lifestyle strategies may integrate the combined solution into their product offerings to deliver next-generation services that can be customized and extended to link with infrastructure offerings such as offsite backup, managed services, webcast and pay-per-view service subscriptions, as well as goods and service offerings that increase revenue per user. Cavium’s ECONA CNS3XXX family of processors offer price performance and HipServ’s modular product structure offers the right mix of options at affordable cost targets for entry to professional grade packages.