OLPC Gets $5.6m Marvell Grant; XO-3 Tablet Not Due Until 2012

Marvell and the OLPC project have already announced they plan to work together on the upcoming XO-3 slate, and now money is changing hands too.  OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte has apparently confirmed to Xconomy that Marvell has pledged a $5.6m grant in return for using their chips in the new tablet.

"Their money is a grant to the OLPC Foundation to develop a tablet or tablets based on their chip.  They're going to put the whole system on a chip.  [Marvell have] been sponsors all along, but they were one of ten. Now they are the technology partner." Nicholas Negroponte

However, while Marvell's chips will be found inside the XO-3, that slate won't be what the two companies bring along to CES 2011.  Instead, the first model will lack OLPC branding and instead be targeted at first-world markets, being based on the Marvell Moby platform and running Android.

It will be developed with OEMs and a partner in education, and is expected to go on sale sometime in 2011.  The OLPC XO-3, meanwhile, will follow on in 2012 according to Negroponte.

[via The Digital Reader]