Cavium

Last updated
Cavium, Inc.
Company type Public
Nasdaq: CAVM
IndustryProcessors and boards
Founded2000;24 years ago (2000)
FounderRaghib Hussain
DefunctJuly 6, 2018 (2018-07-06)
FateAcquired by Marvell Technology Group
Headquarters
San Jose, California
,
United States
Key people
Syed Ali (president & CEO)
Raghib Hussain (COO)
ProductsMicroprocessors, boards
Number of employees
850 [1]
Website www.cavium.com

Cavium, Inc. was a fabless semiconductor company based in San Jose, California, [2] specializing in ARM-based and MIPS-based network, video and security processors and SoCs. [3] The company was co-founded in 2000 [4] [5] [6] by Syed B. Ali and M. Raghib Hussain, [7] who were introduced to each other by a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Cavium offers processor- and board-level products targeting routers, switches, appliances, storage and servers.

Contents

The company went public in May 2007 with about 175 employees. [5] As of 2011, following numerous acquisitions, it had about 850 employees worldwide, of whom about 250 were located at company headquarters in San Jose.

Cavium was acquired by Marvell Technology Group on July 6, 2018. [8]

History

Name change

On June 17, 2011, Cavium Networks, Inc. changed their name to Cavium, Inc. [9]

Acquisitions by Cavium

DateAcquired companyHistorical product line
August 2008Star Semiconductor ARM-based systems-on-chip processors [10]
December 2008W&W CommunicationsVideo compression software and hardware [11]
December 2009 MontaVista SoftwareCarrier Grade Linux compliant Linux & embedded systems [12]
January 2011 [13] Celestial Semiconductor SoCs for digital media applications, including satellite, cable, and Internet TV [14]
February 2011Wavesat TelecommunicationsSemiconductor solutions for carrier and mobile device manufacturers[ citation needed ]
July 2014Xpliant, Inc.Switching and SDN Specialist [15]
June 2016 QLogic, Inc.Ethernet and Storage Specialist [16]

Acquisition of Cavium

In November 2017, Cavium's board of directors agreed to the company's purchase by Marvell Technology Group for $6 billion in cash and stock. [17] The merger was finalized on July 6, 2018.

NSA Interference

On March 23, 2022, Cavium was named [18] as an NSA "enabled" CPU vendor in a PhD thesis titled "Communication in a world of pervasive surveillance". The "enabled" term refers to a process with which a chip vendor has a backdoor introduced into their designs.

Products

Cavium began selling security processors in late 2001 with the Nitrox line. The processor had support for features like IPsec, SSL, intrusion-detection services as well as VPNs. In 2004 the company launched the Octeon processor, which was using a 64-bit MIPS instruction set. At launch Cavium offered Octeon processors with two, four eight or sixteen cores. [19] In 2012, the company announced a 1-48 core MIPS-procesoor from the Octeon-line. [20] In 2014, the company announced the ThunderX, a 48 core server SoC based on the ARMv8 architecture. [21] [22] Cavium also offered ethernet switches that were produced in cooperation with Xpliant since 2014. [23]

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References

  1. ↑ "Cavium Networks Inc. returns to San Jose". Silicon Valley Business News. 8 July 2011. Retrieved 2015-01-08.
  2. ↑ "Cavium | Company Overview & News". Forbes. Retrieved 2023-07-19.
  3. ↑ New York Times Company Profile for Cavium Inc. Archived March 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
  4. ↑ Aslam, Haroon (2017-11-24). "NED alumnus sells company to chip-maker Marvell for $6bn". Dawn. Retrieved 2022-06-29.
  5. 1 2 Azevedo, Mary Ann (2011-07-08). "Cavium Networks Inc. returns to San Jose". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2022-06-29.
  6. ↑ Morgan, Timothy Prickett (2016-06-17). "Cavium Buys Access To Enterprise With QLogic Deal". The Next Platform. Retrieved 2022-06-29.
  7. ↑ "Syed Ali's company Cavium gets acquired for $6 billion". techober.com. 24 November 2017. Retrieved 2017-11-24.
  8. ↑ Shilov, Anton. "Marvell Completes Acquisition of Cavium, Gets CPU, Networking & Security Assets". www.anandtech.com. Retrieved 2019-09-01.
  9. ↑ http://biz.yahoo.com/e/110620/cavm8-k.html [ dead link ]
  10. ↑ "Cavium Networks Completes Acquisition of Taiwan-Based Star Semiconductor". cavium.com (Press release). Archived from the original on October 11, 2008.
  11. ↑ "Cavium Networks Completes Acquisition of W&W Communications". cavium.com. Archived from the original on 2016-06-13. Retrieved 2020-07-16.
  12. ↑ "Cavium Networks Completes Acquisition of MontaVista Software | embedded virtualization" (Press release). December 18, 2009. Archived from the original on 2016-06-12.
  13. ↑ McGrath, Dylan (31 January 2011). "Cavium buys Chinese fabless chip firm". EE Times. Retrieved 17 February 2011.
  14. ↑ "Company Overview". Celestial Semiconductor. Archived from the original on 2011-03-09. Retrieved 17 February 2011.
  15. ↑ "Cavium to Acquire Switching and SDN Specialist Xpliant to Accelerate Deployment of Software Defined Networks" (Press release). Archived from the original on 2017-08-03. Retrieved 2019-01-14.
  16. ↑ "Company press release: Cavium to Acquire QLogic – Opportunity to drive significant growth at scale in data center and storage markets" (Press release). Archived from the original on 2017-01-14. Retrieved 2017-01-15.
  17. ↑ Palladino, Valentina (20 November 2017). "Marvell Technology to buy chipmaker Cavium for about $6 billion". Ars Technica. Retrieved 20 November 2017.
  18. ↑ Applebaum, J. R. "Communication in a world of pervasive surveillance" (PDF). Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  19. ↑ "Cavium Move May Spell End For 'Security Processor' Market". networkcomputing.com. 2004-09-14. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
  20. ↑ "Cavium Intros Octeon III". lightreading.com. 2012-02-07. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
  21. ↑ "Cavium Introduces ThunderX". design-reuse.com. 2014-06-03. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
  22. ↑ "Investigating Cavium's ThunderX: The First ARM Server SoC With Ambition". anandtech.com. 2016-06-15. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
  23. ↑ "Cavium and XPliant Introduce a Fully Programmable Switch Silicon Family Scaling to 3.2 Terabits per Second". design-reuse.com. 2014-09-16. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
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