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US-based Marvell, which makes chips for BlackBerry handsets, has made available components that would go into the sub-Rs 10,000 tablets in India, the cheapest so far in the country.
Mr Anand Ramamoorthy, Country Head, Marvell India, told Business Line that the company is working with its partners, on launching three tablets, in the 7-inch, 8-inch and 10-inch category. All of them will be based on the Android operating system. While one of them is expected to hit the shelves next month, two more will follow in the first half of 2011.
Mr Ramamoorthy was, however, quick to point out that none of these end-products will come from Marvell itself. “We are a chip company. For instance, we sell chips to RIM for its BlackBerry. We do not want to bring out any end-product on our own because we do not wish to compete with our customers.” And while Marvell does not dictate the end-price for which such a product has to be sold , he said that the intent of the company was to help bring out a product at a sub-Rs 10,000 price.
Tablet specifications
Regarding the dimensions of the product, he said that some felt that a 10-inch tablet is too big, while a 7-inch tablet is too small. “An 8-inch tablet is the right size. Some believe that a 5-inch tablet is right, but we believe that this is closer to a mobile phone than to a tablet.”
Mr Ramamoorthy said that while the primary focus of his company was on the education industry, Marvell was also keen on other areas. “We are not constrained by one segment. Many users want to surf the Internet, get broadband access, watch a movie, or read a book on a tablet and we are looking at all this.”
All this means that the chip should be powerful and Mr Ramamoorthy said that the products will have at least an 800 MHz chip at the entry-level, going on to dual core GHz chips for the high-end tablets. These products, he said, will support Blu-ray level quality for movies and will also have a 3D graphics engine for gaming.
Some of the components have been made in India - for instance, Mr Ramamoorthy said that the video subsystem was made in Bangalore, while the Wi-Fi came from Pune. These tablets could be expected to connect to the Internet in one of two ways - either through a USB-enabled wireless modem or through a SIM card.
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