Marvell Technology, Inc.
Acquisitions
4
Major Deals Covered
$20.4B
Disclosed Deal Value
Marvell's largest disclosed acquisition here is Inphi Corporation for $10B in 2021. This page covers 4 major deals from 2018 to 2026, each with its price where disclosed and the reason behind it.
| Company | Year | Price | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Celestial AI | 2026 | $3.3B | Add photonic interconnect technology for scale-up AI systems. |
| Inphi Corporation | 2021 | $10.0B | Add PAM4 and coherent optical DSPs and related electro-optics products. |
| Innovium | 2021 | $1.1B | Add Teralynx cloud Ethernet switch silicon. |
| Cavium | 2018 | $6.0B | Add OCTEON processors, Ethernet adapters and QLogic storage products. |
2026
$3.3B
Add photonic interconnect technology for scale-up AI systems.
Gives Marvell an optical option for linking accelerators and memory inside AI racks.
Closed February 2, 2026; upfront value about $3.25 billion in cash and stock.
2021
$10.0B
Add PAM4 and coherent optical DSPs and related electro-optics products.
Made electro-optics one of Marvell's largest data-center businesses.
Closed April 2021 in a cash-and-stock deal valued at about $10 billion.
2021
$1.1B
Add Teralynx cloud Ethernet switch silicon.
Gave Marvell a merchant switch line to compete with Broadcom in data centers.
Closed in 2021 in an all-stock deal of about $1.1 billion.
2018
$6.0B
Add OCTEON processors, Ethernet adapters and QLogic storage products.
Expanded Marvell into infrastructure processors for data center and carrier markets.
Closed July 2018 for about $6 billion.
Marvell's growth plan centers on AI infrastructure. It is expanding custom XPU and XPU-attach programs with large cloud providers, upgrading optical DSPs from 800G to 1.6T and beyond, growing Teralynx switches and retimers, and adding optical scale-up interconnect through Celestial AI. It has narrowed its portfolio to fund this, selling the automotive Ethernet business to Infineon in 2025, and it widened its reach in 2026 through Nvidia's NVLink Fusion ecosystem.
Marvell runs a fabless model: it designs chips and licenses-in or builds IP (SerDes, PAM4 and coherent DSPs, Arm compute subsystems, packaging), while foundries such as TSMC manufacture them. It makes money in two ways. First, it sells standard products, including electro-optics DSPs and drivers for optical modules, Teralynx Ethernet switches, PCIe/CXL retimers, storage controllers and OCTEON processors. Second, its custom business co-designs AI accelerators and other ASICs for hyperscalers, earning engineering fees during development and product revenue once chips ship in volume. Marvell reports revenue as Data Center (74% of fiscal 2026) and Communications and Other (26%), which covers enterprise networking, carrier infrastructure and consumer products. In fiscal 2026, 57% of revenue came from direct customers and 43% through distributors.
In April 2021, Marvell acquired high-speed electro-optics and optical interconnect pioneer Inphi Corporation for $10 billion in cash and stock, cementing Marvell as the global leader in electro-optic PAM4 DSPs for AI cloud data centers.
In July 2018, Marvell acquired multi-core processing and networking pioneer Cavium, Inc. for $6.0 billion, adding OCTEON DPUs, FastLinQ Ethernet NICs, and QLogic Fibre Channel storage host bus adapters to its infrastructure portfolio.
In October 2021, Marvell acquired Ethernet switch silicon startup Innovium for $1.1 billion in stock, adding the TERALYNX high-radix cloud Ethernet switch family (up to 51.2 Tbps) to compete directly against Broadcom's Tomahawk chips.
In September 2019, Marvell acquired Multi-Gig Ethernet pioneer Aquantia for $452 million, giving Marvell the foundational technology for its Brightlane high-speed automotive Ethernet networking lineup.
In November 2019, Marvell acquired Avera Semi, the custom ASIC business of GlobalFoundries (originally IBM's Microelectronics ASIC team), for $650 million, securing high-quality custom ASIC design engineers and foundational IP.
In 2006, Marvell acquired Intel's mobile communications and XScale application processor business for $600 million, expanding into mobile handsets and smart devices before later divesting consumer mobile to focus on data centers.
In January 2001, Marvell executed its first mega-deal, acquiring Israeli Ethernet switching silicon maker Galileo Technology for $2.7 billion in stock, establishing Marvell's core Ethernet networking switching business and R&D presence in Israel.
Under Matt Murphy, Marvell buys data-center technology (Cavium, Inphi, Innovium, Celestial AI) and sells non-core units, such as automotive Ethernet to Infineon in 2025.
To completely dominate data infrastructure, Marvell executed massive, highly strategic acquisitions. In 2018, they bought Cavium for $6 billion to instantly dominate ARM-based server processors. In 2021, they executed an absolutely historic $10 billion acquisition of Inphi. Inphi was the absolute global leader in high-speed electro-optics (using light to move data), which perfectly positioned Marvell to dominate the networking requirements of the upcoming Generative AI boom.
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