Marvell to acquire network company Aquantia for $452 million

Chip manufacturer Marvell has reached an agreement with Aquantia for an acquisition. Marvell is buying all shares for a total of $452 million. Converted that is about 403 million euros. Aquantia makes network equipment for, among other things, cars.

Marvell expects the acquisition to be completed by the end of this year. The companies have reached an agreement, but are still awaiting regulatory approval. Marvell is particularly interested in the automotive networking equipment that Aquantia makes.

Aquantia makes PHY chips and Ethernet controllers that support speeds of up to 10GBit/s for automotive applications. Such equipment is intended for autonomous cars reaching level 4 or 5 in autonomous driving. A lot of bandwidth is needed to process all data from sensors and cameras in such cars.

With the acquisition, Marvell wants to strengthen its position in the network equipment market. At the end of 2017, the chip manufacturer took over Cavium, a company that also specializes in network chips.