News

Xilinx Pushes Forward with 'Datacenter First' Strategy with Solarflare Acquisition

• By Becky Nagel
• 04/26/2019

Irvine, Calif.-based Solarflare -- known for its high-speed Ethernet and "ultra low latency" application acceleration offerings -- is being acquired by San Jose, Calif.-based Xilinx, according to an announcement made April 24.

With the acquisition, Xilinx -- which offers processing solutions from the edge to the cloud -- said that the purchase will allow it "to combine its industry-leading FPGA, MPSoC and ACAP solutions with Solarflare's ultra-low latency network interface card (NIC) technology and Onload application acceleration software, to enable new converged SmartNIC solutions, accelerating Xilinx's 'data center first' strategy and transition to a platform company."

The two companies have been collaborating together for two years, and Xilinx became an investor in Solarflare in 2017.

"Solarflare has been a pioneer in key areas such as high-speed Ethernet, application acceleration, and NVMe-over-fabrics, which are the critical components needed to build the next generation of SmartNICs for cloud and enterprise technologies," commented Salil Raje, executive vice president and general manager, Data Center Group, Xilinx, in a prepared statement.  "Acquiring Solarflare brings Xilinx both market-leading technology and exceptional engineering talent with expertise in networking hardware, software, firmware and drivers."

According to the announcement, the acquisition is scheduled to close in 2020. No purchase amount was given.