Having dated for a while, Xilinx gets serious and buys Solarflare to raise its networking game
FPGAs + NICs = profit
- FPGA daddy Xilinx is buying California-based silicon design startup Solarflare Communications to improve its networking credentials.
- Solarflare uses field-programmable gate arrays to build SmartNICs – network interface cards that run network, storage and compute acceleration using specialised on-board chips, eliminating the need to run these workloads on CPUs.
- "The Solarflare team has worked very closely with Xilinx on next-generation networking technology and business collaboration since Xilinx became a strategic investor," said Russell Stern, head honcho at Solarflare.