Marvell has announced its second-generation Structera X CXL memory expanders, the 3406 and 3506. Both support CXL 3.2 and PCIe Gen6, doubling host bandwidth to 256GB/s compared with the prior generation's 128GB/s. The model numbers decode as follows: the first digit indicates CXL 3, the second digit indicates the DDR generation (4 or 5), and the trailing two digits indicate the memory channel count.
The 3406 is a DDR4 part with six channels, supporting up to 18 RDIMMs and 9TB per controller. The 3506 is a DDR5 part with six channels, supporting 12 DIMMs and up to 6TB. Both controllers remain on Marvell's 5nm process and include LZ4 compression that can keep pace with the interface, so the attached memory can store more than its physical DRAM capacity.
CXL 3.2 also allows up to four hosts to share pooled memory. Marvell's six-channel design puts 50% more DRAM behind a single controller than competitors' four-channel CXL 3.x parts. The announcement covers only the Structera X memory expansion line, not the Structera A near-memory compute controller shown last year. For hyperscalers running DDR4 and lower-speed DDR5 reclamation projects, the new parts are positioned as a better version of the previous 2000 series.