Broadcom Inc.
Semiconductors & Enterprise SoftwareFounded 1991- Updated July 2025
Reviewed by Swet Parvadiya
Last reviewed: July 2025
CorpDigest
Broadcom Inc.
Company History
Founded 1991 in San Jose, California
Last reviewed: 2025-07-15 · By Swet Parvadiya
Broadcom Corporation was founded in 1991 by Henry Samueli and Henry Nicholas III out of UCLA, initially focused on broadband communication semiconductors. The IPO came in 1998 at the peak of the networking boom, and the stock became one of the defining stories of the dot-com era. Then came the crash, the stock options backdating scandal of 2006, and the eventual departure of the founders.
Meanwhile, a separate entity called Avago Technologies was spun out of Hewlett-Packard's semiconductor division in 2005, backed by private equity. Hock Tan took over as Avago's CEO in 2006 and immediately began applying an acquisition strategy that would define the company's next two decades: identify businesses with essential technology, dominant market positions, and recurring maintenance revenue, then acquire them and optimize ruthlessly.
Avago went public in 2009 and began acquiring: LSI Corporation for $6.6 billion in 2014, adding storage controllers and networking chips. Then the audacious 2016 purchase of Broadcom Corporation itself for $37 billion — Avago bought a company nearly its own size and took the Broadcom name. The combined entity's 2018 attempt to acquire Qualcomm in a hostile $117 billion deal was blocked by presidential order on national security grounds, one of the few times the strategy encountered an immovable obstacle.
The CA Technologies acquisition in 2018 and the Symantec enterprise security division purchase in 2019 were the pivots that clarified the dual-engine model: semiconductor excellence combined with enterprise software recurring revenue. VMware in 2023 extended that model to its logical maximum.
Henry Samueli co-founded Broadcom Corporation in 1991 with his former PhD student Henry Nicholas III, using $5,000 in seed capital to pursue the development of cable modem silicon. As the chief technical architect of the company, Samueli led the engineering organization through the development of Broadcom's DOCSIS cable modem chips, ethernet networking silicon, and eventually the broader semiconductor portfolio that made the company one of Silicon Valley's most valuable properties. He served as Chief Technology Officer through the company's growth years and its public offering in 1998. Following the 2016 merger with Avago Technologies that created the modern Broadcom Inc., Samueli continued as CTO and chairman, providing technical continuity to the combined organization. He was involved in the stock options backdating controversy of the mid-2000s but remained with the company through its restructuring and eventual comeback. His name adorns UCLA's engineering school following a $100 million donation, one of the largest gifts to a public university engineering program in California history.
Henry Nicholas III co-founded Broadcom Corporation alongside Henry Samueli in 1991, contributing the startup's initial capital from his personal savings and serving as the company's first President and CEO. Under his leadership, Broadcom developed the DOCSIS cable modem chips that established its market position, went public in 1998 at a valuation that made both founders billionaires, and pursued an aggressive acquisition strategy during the dot-com era that built a broad networking and communications semiconductor portfolio. Nicholas's tenure also encompassed the period of corporate governance controversy that ultimately led to the stock options backdating investigation. He resigned from Broadcom in 2003. Federal charges against him, including securities fraud related to the options scandal and separate drug-related charges, resulted in a complex legal process that ended with his acquittal on most counts in 2009. Nicholas has subsequently been involved in philanthropy, including advocacy for traumatic brain injury awareness. His connection to the company that carries the Broadcom name today is historical rather than operational.
Henry Samueli and Henry Nicholas III incorporate Broadcom Corporation in Los Angeles, California, with $5,000 in seed capital, targeting the emerging cable modem semiconductor market.
Broadcom Corporation completes its initial public offering on Nasdaq at $24 per share, raising approximately $126 million and establishing the company as a public Silicon Valley semiconductor firm.
KKR and Silver Lake Partners acquire the semiconductor components division of Agilent Technologies for approximately $2.66 billion and establish it as Avago Technologies, an independent company that becomes the corporate predecessor of the modern Broadcom Inc.
Hock Tan is recruited as President and CEO of Avago Technologies, beginning the disciplined acquisition-and-optimization strategy that will eventually transform the company into one of the world's most valuable technology enterprises.
Avago Technologies completes its IPO on Nasdaq, raising approximately $1.04 billion at a valuation of roughly $3 billion, providing the public market currency that will fuel future acquisitions.
Avago Technologies acquires LSI Corporation — a maker of storage and networking semiconductor chips — for approximately $6.6 billion, significantly expanding its addressable market in enterprise data storage and fiber channel networking.
Avago Technologies completes the acquisition of Broadcom Corporation for approximately $37 billion in cash and stock — the largest semiconductor deal in history at that time — and adopts the Broadcom name and AVGO ticker, creating the foundation of the modern company.
Broadcom acquires CA Technologies, a diversified enterprise software company with mainframe and DevOps tools, for approximately $18.9 billion, marking its first major move into enterprise software and establishing the infrastructure software segment.
Broadcom acquires the enterprise security business of Symantec Corporation for approximately $10.7 billion, adding cybersecurity software including data loss prevention, web security gateway, and endpoint protection to its growing software portfolio.
Broadcom announces its agreement to acquire VMware, Inc. For approximately $61 billion in cash and stock at announcement, in what would become the largest technology acquisition in history upon closing.
After obtaining regulatory approvals across multiple jurisdictions including the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, and China, Broadcom completes the acquisition of VMware on November 22, 2023, for a total transaction value of approximately $69 billion including assumed debt, adding the world's leading enterprise virtualization platform to its portfolio.
Broadcom reports fiscal year 2024 revenue of approximately $51.57 billion, a 44 percent increase, and discloses that AI semiconductor revenue reached approximately $12.2 billion while guiding for $60-90 billion in AI XPU revenue from its top three hyperscaler customers over FY2025-2026, establishing itself as a central player in the AI infrastructure buildout.
Avago Technologies acquired LSI Corporation in May 2014 for approximately $6.6 billion to gain its portfolio of storage semiconductor products — particularly fiber channel and SAS/SATA RAID controllers — and its networking ASIC business. LSI was the leading supplier of host bus adapters for enterprise storage area networks and had a significant server RAID controller business serving major OEMs including Dell, HP, and IBM. The acquisition also brought Sandforce, LSI's flash storage controller business, providing exposure to the emerging enterprise SSD market.
Avago Technologies' acquisition of Broadcom Corporation for approximately $37 billion was transformational — it was the largest semiconductor deal in history at the time and brought Avago the dominant franchise in data center ethernet switching silicon (the Tomahawk and Trident product lines), a leading broadband access chip business, and a well-established brand name in semiconductor networking that carried significant recognition among enterprise and hyperscale customers. The acquisition was motivated by Hock Tan's conviction that networking silicon at the hyperscale data center layer was the most strategically important and financially attractive semiconductor segment for the coming decade.
Broadcom's acquisition of CA Technologies in November 2018 for approximately $18.9 billion represented the company's first major move into enterprise software and was initially met with skepticism from investors who questioned what a semiconductor company would do with a mainframe software business. The rationale was straightforward in Tan's framework: CA Technologies had a massive installed base of enterprise customers with extremely high switching costs, a product portfolio that had been under-invested in for years, a cost structure that could be dramatically reduced, and a revenue base that was structurally recurring even under perpetual license terms due to mandatory maintenance contracts.
Broadcom acquired the enterprise security business of Symantec Corporation for approximately $10.7 billion in November 2019, adding endpoint security, data loss prevention, web security gateway, and cloud security services to its infrastructure software portfolio. The acquisition was motivated by the defensibility and entrenchment of Symantec's enterprise customer relationships in regulated industries — financial services, healthcare, and government — where security software removal triggers compliance reviews and represents significant operational risk.
Broadcom's acquisition of VMware, completed November 22, 2023, for approximately $69 billion including assumed debt, was the largest technology acquisition in history and the defining transaction of Hock Tan's tenure. VMware's approximately 40,000 enterprise customers running its vSphere, NSX, and vSAN virtualization platform had some of the highest switching costs in enterprise technology — replacing VMware in a large enterprise data center environment is a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar undertaking. The acquisition was designed to add a massive, defensible software recurring revenue stream to Broadcom's semiconductor cashflows, creating a company that could sustain high margins across semiconductor cycles.
Today's Broadcom Inc. is actually Avago Technologies — a Singapore-based semiconductor company originating from HP Test and Measurement Group spin-off in 1999 — which acquired the original Broadcom Corporation in 2016 for $37 billion and adopted the Broadcom name due to brand recognition advantages. The acquisition was led by CEO Hock Tan who had built Avago through aggressive M&A acquiring specialty semiconductor businesses with limited competition and high margins. The combined entity gained Broadcom's networking and wireless chip portfolios alongside Avago's existing specialty semiconductors, creating diversified semiconductor company with $13 billion revenue. The rebranding leveraged Broadcom's stronger brand recognition while maintaining Tan's management approach, and the company's subsequent transformation through CA Technologies (2018) and Symantec (2019) acquisitions demonstrated continued M&A-driven growth strategy.
Broadcom acquired VMware Inc. for $69 billion (cash and stock) in November 2023, the largest acquisition in semiconductor industry history, transforming Broadcom from primarily hardware company into combined hardware-software business with significant enterprise software exposure. VMware's virtualisation software, Cloud Foundation platform, and infrastructure software generated $14 billion annual revenue serving enterprise customers, providing recurring software subscriptions complementing Broadcom's hardware product cycles. CEO Hock Tan immediately implemented aggressive cost reductions cutting 7,000+ VMware employees (~20% of workforce), shifted VMware from perpetual licenses to subscription model with significant price increases (some customers reported 300-1000% increases), and bundled VMware products requiring customers to purchase comprehensive packages rather than individual products. The integration approach has generated extraordinary near-term profitability through cost cuts and pricing but created significant customer pushback that may affect long-term competitive positioning.
Broadcom launched hostile takeover bid for Qualcomm in November 2017 starting at $103 billion and ultimately reaching $121 billion — what would have been the largest tech acquisition in history — only to have President Donald Trump block the deal in March 2018 on national security grounds related to 5G technology leadership. The Trump administration's CFIUS review concluded that Broadcom's Singapore domicile created national security risks if combined with Qualcomm's US-based 5G intellectual property, and Trump issued executive order prohibiting the acquisition before formal CFIUS recommendation. Broadcom subsequently redomiciled from Singapore to Delaware (April 2018) to address national security concerns, but Qualcomm remained independent. The blocked deal validated that geopolitical considerations now constrain pharmaceutical and semiconductor M&A in ways that purely market-based analysis cannot predict, particularly involving strategic technologies.
Broadcom's stock price increased from approximately $40 (2015) to $1,800+ (2024 split-adjusted), generating extraordinary 45x+ returns through 9 years of aggressive M&A combined with operational excellence and AI semiconductor demand growth. Market capitalisation grew from $25 billion to $1+ trillion by late 2024, making Broadcom one of the world's most valuable companies and the only major semiconductor company to reach trillion-dollar valuation. The stock's remarkable performance reflects multiple factors: successful M&A integration generating cost synergies, AI semiconductor demand growth (Broadcom's custom ASICs for Google, Meta), VMware acquisition's near-term profitability, and CEO Hock Tan's exceptional capital allocation reputation. However, the trillion-dollar valuation creates expectations for continued execution excellence that any operational stumble could damage significantly.
When CEO Hock Tan announced plans on November 2, 2017 to redomicile Broadcom Limited from Singapore to Delaware, the move was made standing alongside President Donald Trump in the Oval Office and was widely seen as a political gesture tied to U.S. tax reform. The reality proved more strategic: as a Singapore-domiciled company, Broadcom's $117 billion hostile bid for Qualcomm announced on November 6, 2017 fell under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which on March 12, 2018 recommended that President Trump block the deal on national security grounds, citing concerns about Chinese 5G competition and Huawei. Trump issued the formal blocking order on March 12, 2018, killing the largest tech deal ever attempted. Broadcom completed its redomicile to the U.S. on April 4, 2018, becoming Broadcom Inc., a Delaware corporation, removing CFIUS jurisdiction over its future U.S. acquisitions. The change cleared the path for the $18.9 billion CA Technologies deal closed in November 2018, the $10.7 billion Symantec enterprise security carve-out in November 2019, and ultimately the $69 billion VMware acquisition closed November 22, 2023, none of which would have been politically achievable under Singapore domicile. The redomicile also aligned Broadcom's tax structure with the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and made S&P 500 inclusion possible, which occurred on April 4, 2018 the same day as the move.