Cavium

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title: "Cavium" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["defunct-semiconductor-companies-of-the-united-states", "networking-companies-of-the-united-states", "companies-formerly-listed-on-the-nasdaq", "companies-based-in-san-jose,-california", "electronics-companies-established-in-2001", "american-companies-established-in-2001", "fabless-semiconductor-companies", "2018-mergers-and-acquisitions", "american-corporate-subsidiaries", "defunct-computer-companies-of-the-united-states", "defunct-networking-companies", "networking-hardware-companies", "defunct-computer-hardware-companies"] description: "American fabless semiconductor company" topic_path: "engineering" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavium" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American fabless semiconductor company ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox company"]

Field	Value
name	Cavium, Inc.
logo	Logo of Cavium Inc.svg
type	Public
traded_as
key_people	Syed Ali (president & CEO)
Raghib Hussain (COO)
fate	Acquired by Marvell Technology Group
founder	Raghib Hussain
defunct
industry	Processors and boards
products	Microprocessors, boards
num_employees	850
website
foundation
location_city	San Jose, California
location_country	United States
::

| name = Cavium, Inc. | logo = Logo of Cavium Inc.svg | type = Public | traded_as = | key_people = Syed Ali (president & CEO) Raghib Hussain (COO) | fate = Acquired by Marvell Technology Group | founder = Raghib Hussain | defunct = | industry = Processors and boards | products = Microprocessors, boards | num_employees = 850 | website = | foundation = | location_city = San Jose, California | location_country = United States Cavium, Inc. was a fabless semiconductor company based in San Jose, California, specializing in ARM-based and MIPS-based network, video and security processors and SoCs. The company was co-founded in 2000 by Syed B. Ali and M. Raghib Hussain, 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.

History

Name change

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

Acquisitions by Cavium

::data[format=table]

Date	Acquired company	Historical product line
August 2008	Star Semiconductor	ARM-based systems-on-chip processors
December 2008	W&W Communications	url=https://www.cavium.com/newsevents_Caviumnetworks_W&W_Acquisition.html
December 2009	MontaVista Software	url=https://www.cavium.com/newsevents_Caviumnetworks_MontaVista_Acquisition-Completes.html
last=McGrath	first=Dylan	title=Cavium buys Chinese fabless chip firm
February 2011	Wavesat Telecommunications	Semiconductor solutions for carrier and mobile device manufacturers
July 2014	Xpliant, Inc.	url=https://www.cavium.com/newsevents-Cavium-to-Acquire-Switching-and-SDN-Specialist-Xpliant-to-Accelerate-Deployment-of-Software-Defined-Networks.html
June 2016	QLogic, Inc.	url=https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cavium-acquire-qlogic-200000720.html
::

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. The merger was finalized on July 6, 2018.

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. In 2012, the company announced a 1-48 core MIPS-processor from the Octeon-line. In 2014, the company announced the ThunderX, a 48 core server SoC based on the ARMv8 architecture. Cavium also offered ethernet switches that were produced in cooperation with Xpliant since 2014.

References

References

1. (8 July 2011). "Cavium Networks Inc. returns to San Jose". Silicon Valley Business News.
2. "Cavium {{!}} Company Overview & News".
3. [https://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/cavium-networks-inc/index.html New York Times Company Profile for Cavium Inc.] {{webarchive. link. (March 5, 2016)
4. Aslam, Haroon. (2017-11-24). "NED alumnus sells company to chip-maker Marvell for $6bn".
5. Azevedo, Mary Ann. (2011-07-08). "Cavium Networks Inc. returns to San Jose".
6. Morgan, Timothy Prickett. (2016-06-17). "Cavium Buys Access To Enterprise With QLogic Deal".
7. (24 November 2017). "Syed Ali's company Cavium gets acquired for $6 billion".
8. Shilov, Anton. "Marvell Completes Acquisition of Cavium, Gets CPU, Networking & Security Assets".
9. http://biz.yahoo.com/e/110620/cavm8-k.html {{dead link. (August 2012)
10. "Cavium Networks Completes Acquisition of Taiwan-Based Star Semiconductor".
11. "Cavium Networks Completes Acquisition of W&W Communications".
12. (December 18, 2009). "Cavium Networks Completes Acquisition of MontaVista Software {{!}} embedded virtualization".
13. McGrath, Dylan. (31 January 2011). "Cavium buys Chinese fabless chip firm". EE Times.
14. "Company Overview". Celestial Semiconductor.
15. "Cavium to Acquire Switching and SDN Specialist Xpliant to Accelerate Deployment of Software Defined Networks".
16. "Company press release: Cavium to Acquire QLogic – Opportunity to drive significant growth at scale in data center and storage markets".
17. (20 November 2017). "Marvell Technology to buy chipmaker Cavium for about $6 billion". Ars Technica.
18. (2004-09-14). "Cavium Move May Spell End For 'Security Processor' Market". networkcomputing.com.
19. (2012-02-07). "Cavium Intros Octeon III". lightreading.com.
20. (2014-06-03). "Cavium Introduces ThunderX". design-reuse.com.
21. (2016-06-15). "Investigating Cavium's ThunderX: The First ARM Server SoC With Ambition". anandtech.com.
22. (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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