Cavium Explained

Cavium, Inc.
Type:Public
Traded As:NASDAQ:
Key People:Syed Ali (president & CEO)
Raghib Hussain (COO)
Fate:Acquired by Marvell Technology Group
Founder:Raghib Hussain
Industry:Processors and boards
Products:Microprocessors, boards
Num Employees:850[1]
Website:www.cavium.com
Location City:San Jose, California
Location Country:United States

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.

The company went public in May 2007 with about 175 employees. 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 SemiconductorARM-based systems-on-chip processors[10]
December 2008W&W CommunicationsVideo compression software and hardware[11]
December 2009MontaVista SoftwareCarrier Grade Linux compliant Linux & embedded systems[12]
January 2011[13] Celestial SemiconductorSoCs for digital media applications, including satellite, cable, and Internet TV[14]
February 2011Wavesat TelecommunicationsSemiconductor solutions for carrier and mobile device manufacturers
July 2014Xpliant, Inc.Switching and SDN Specialist[15]
June 2016QLogic, 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]

Notes and References

  1. News: Cavium Networks Inc. returns to San Jose . 2015-01-08 . Silicon Valley Business News . 8 July 2011.
  2. Web site: Cavium Company Overview & News . 2023-07-19 . Forbes . en.
  3. https://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/cavium-networks-inc/index.html New York Times Company Profile for Cavium Inc.
  4. Web site: Aslam . Haroon . 2017-11-24 . NED alumnus sells company to chip-maker Marvell for $6bn . 2022-06-29 . Dawn.
  5. Web site: Azevedo . Mary Ann . 2011-07-08 . Cavium Networks Inc. returns to San Jose . 2022-06-29 . www.bizjournals.com.
  6. Web site: Morgan . Timothy Prickett . 2016-06-17 . Cavium Buys Access To Enterprise With QLogic Deal . 2022-06-29 . The Next Platform . en-US.
  7. Web site: Syed Ali's company Cavium gets acquired for $6 billion. techober.com. 24 November 2017. en-US. 2017-11-24.
  8. Web site: Marvell Completes Acquisition of Cavium, Gets CPU, Networking & Security Assets. Shilov. Anton. www.anandtech.com. 2019-09-01.
  9. http://biz.yahoo.com/e/110620/cavm8-k.html
  10. Cavium Networks Completes Acquisition of Taiwan-Based Star Semiconductor . cavium.com . https://web.archive.org/web/20081011220607/http://www.cavium.com/newsevents_Caviumnetworks_STAR_Acquisition.html . October 11, 2008.
  11. Web site: Cavium Networks Completes Acquisition of W&W Communications. cavium.com. 2020-07-16. https://web.archive.org/web/20160613001721/http://cavium.com/newsevents_Caviumnetworks_W%26W_Acquisition.html. 2016-06-13. dead.
  12. Cavium Networks Completes Acquisition of MontaVista Software embedded virtualization. https://web.archive.org/web/20160612234112/https://www.cavium.com/newsevents_Caviumnetworks_MontaVista_Acquisition-Completes.html. December 18, 2009. 2016-06-12.
  13. News: McGrath. Dylan. Cavium buys Chinese fabless chip firm. 17 February 2011. EE Times. 31 January 2011.
  14. Web site: Company Overview. Celestial Semiconductor. 17 February 2011 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110309202935/https://www.celestialsemi.com/english/profiles/Introduction/ . 2011-03-09.
  15. Cavium to Acquire Switching and SDN Specialist Xpliant to Accelerate Deployment of Software Defined Networks. 2019-01-14. https://web.archive.org/web/20170803082412/http://cavium.com/newsevents-Cavium-to-Acquire-Switching-and-SDN-Specialist-Xpliant-to-Accelerate-Deployment-of-Software-Defined-Networks.html. 2017-08-03. dead.
  16. Company press release: Cavium to Acquire QLogic – Opportunity to drive significant growth at scale in data center and storage markets . 2017-01-15 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170114063433/https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cavium-acquire-qlogic-200000720.html . 2017-01-14 . dead .
  17. News: Palladino. Valentina. Marvell Technology to buy chipmaker Cavium for about $6 billion. 20 November 2017. Ars Technica. 20 November 2017.
  18. Web site: Applebaum . J. R. . Communication in a world of pervasive surveillance . 19 September 2023.
  19. Web site: 2024-08-16 . 2004-09-14 . Cavium Move May Spell End For 'Security Processor' Market . networkcomputing.com .
  20. Web site: 2024-08-16 . 2012-02-07 . Cavium Intros Octeon III . lightreading.com .
  21. Web site: 2024-08-16 . 2014-06-03 . Cavium Introduces ThunderX . design-reuse.com .
  22. Web site: 2024-08-16 . 2016-06-15 . Investigating Cavium's ThunderX: The First ARM Server SoC With Ambition . anandtech.com .
  23. Web site: 2024-08-16 . 2014-09-16 . Cavium and XPliant Introduce a Fully Programmable Switch Silicon Family Scaling to 3.2 Terabits per Second . design-reuse.com .

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