Cavium

Cavium
Former type	Public
Traded as	NASDAQ: CAVM
Industry	Processors and Boards
Fate	Acquired by Marvell Technology Group
Founded	2001
Defunct	July 6, 2018
Headquarters	San Jose, California, United States
Key people	Syed Ali (President & CEO); Raghib Hussain; Founder & COO
Number of employees	850[1]
Website	cavium.com

Cavium is a fabless semiconductor company based in San Jose, California, specializing in ARM-based and MIPS-based network, video and security processors and SoCs.^[2] The company was co-founded by Syed B. Ali and M. Raghib Hussain^[3] who were introduced to each other by a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Cavium offers processor and board level products targeting routers, switches, appliances, storage and servers.

The company went public in May 2007 with about 175 employees. As of 2011, following numerous acquisitions, it had about 850 employees worldwide, of whom about 250 were located at company headquarters in San Jose.

Products

cnMIPS microarchitecture

The cnMIPS microarchitecture implements the MIPS64 instruction set.

OCTEON SoCs

^[4]

Model	Launch	Fab (nm)	cnMIPS I-cores			Notes
Model	Launch	Fab (nm)	#	Core clock (MHz)	L2 cache [KB]	Notes
CN3005	2002	90	1	300–500	64
CN3010			1		128
CN3110			1		256
CN3120			2		256
CN3630			4	400–600	512
CN3830			4		1024
CN3840			8		1024
CN3850			12		1024
CN3860			16		1024

OCTEON Plus SoCs

^[5]

Model	Launch	Fab (nm)	cnMIPS I-cores			Notes
Model	Launch	Fab (nm)	#	Core clock (MHz)	L2 cache [KB]	Notes
CN5010		90	1	300–700	128
CN5020			2	300–700	128
CN5220			2	500–800	512
CN5230			4	500–800	512
CN5430			4	500–700	1024
CN5434			6		1024
CN5530			4		1024
CN5534			6		1024
CN5640			8	600–800	2048
CN5645			10		2048
CN5650			12		2048
CN5740			8		2048
CN5745			10		2048
CN5750			12		2048
CN5830			4		2048
CN5840			8		2048
CN5850			12		2048
CN5860			16		2048

OCTEON II SoCs

^[6]

Model	Launch	Fab (nm)	cnMIPS II-cores			Notes
Model	Launch	Fab (nm)	#	Core clock (MHz)	L2 cache [KB]	Notes
CN6010		65	1	400–800	512
CN6020			2	400–800	512
CN6120			2	600–1200	1024
CN6130			4	600–1200	1024
CN6220			2	800–1000	1024
CN6230			4	800–1000	1024
CN6320			2	800–1500	2048
CN6330			4		2048
CN6335			6		2048
CN6635			6		2048
CN6645			10		2048
CN6740			8		4096
CN6760			16		4096
CN6860			16	800–1400	4096
CN6870			24		4096
CN6880			32		4096

OCTEON III SoCs

^[7] ^[8]

Model	Launch	Fab (nm)	cnMIPS III-cores			Notes
Model	Launch	Fab (nm)	#	Core clock (MHz)	L2 cache [KB]	Notes
CN7010		28	1	800–1200	512
CN7020			2	800–1200	512
CN7120			2	800–1600	512
CN7125			3		512
CN7130			4		512
CN7760			16	1600–2500	8192
CN7770			24		8192
CN7870			24		16384
CN7880			32		16384
CN7890			48		16384

ThunderX SoCs

The ThunderX line of SoCs from Cavium were released with up to 48 dual issue, out of order ARMv8 cores.^[9]^[10] These SoCs were targeted at servers in network intensive applications, competing with Intel Xeon products.^[11] The ThunderX line is manufactured by Global Foundries at 28 nm and is reported to have a TDP less than 100W.^[11]

Model	Launch	Fab (nm)	ARMv8-A-cores		Notes
Model	Launch	Fab (nm)	#	Core clock (MHz)	Notes
CN87xx_xx	2014	28	8–16	Up to 2500
CN88xx_xx	2014	28	24–48	Up to 2500

Comparison of ARMv8-A cores

ThunderX2 SoCs

Cavium announced in 2016 the ThunderX2 line of SoCs, initially as iterative improvement of their ThunderX line.^[11]^[12] The name was later used for the former Vulcan SoC design purchased from Broadcom.^[13]^[14] ThunderX2 has up to 54 custom ARM cores and is manufactured on Global Foundries' 14 nm FinFET process. These and other improvements are reported to offer twice the performance per core of the ThunderX line.

Cray has added "ARM Option" (i.e. CPU blade option, using the ThunderX2) to their XC50 supercomputers, and Cray claims that ARM is "a third processor architecture for building next-generation supercomputers", for e.g. the US Department of Energy.^[15]

History

Name change

On June 17, 2011, Cavium Networks, Inc. changed their name to Cavium, Inc.^[16]

Acquisitions

Date	Acquired company	Historical product line
August 2008	Star Semiconductor	ARM-based systems-on-chip processors^[17]
December 2008	W&W Communications	Video compression software and hardware^[18]
December 2009	MontaVista Software	Carrier Grade Linux compliant Linux & embedded systems^[19]
January 2011^[20]	Celestial Semiconductor	SoCs for digital media applications, including satellite, cable, and Internet TV^[21]
February 2011	Wavesat Telecommunications	Semiconductor solutions for carrier and mobile device manufacturers ^[22]
July 2014	Xpliant, Inc.	Switching and SDN Specialist^[23]
June 2016	QLogic, Inc.	Ethernet and Storage Specialist^[24]

Acquisition

In November 2017, Cavium's board of directors agreed to the company's purchase by Marvell Technology Group for $6 billion in cash and stock.^[25]. The merger was finalized in July 2018.

References

↑ "Cavium Networks Inc. returns to San Jose". Silicon Valley Business News. 8 July 2011. Retrieved 2015-01-08.
↑ New York Times Company Profile for Cavium Inc. Archived March 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ "Syed Ali's company Cavium gets acquired for $6 billion". techober.com. Retrieved 2017-11-24.
↑ Cavium.com: Cavium Octeon SoCs Product Table Archived October 20, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Cavium.com: Cavium Octeon Plus SoCs Product Table Archived October 20, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Cavium.com: Cavium Octeon II SoCs Product Table Archived October 20, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Cavium.com: Cavium Octeon III SoCs Product Table Archived October 20, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Cavium.com: Cavium Octeon III SoCs Product CN77XX Table Archived October 20, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ De Gelas, Johan (16 December 2014). "ARM Challenging Intel in the Server Market". Anandtech. Retrieved 8 March 2017.
↑ Cavium.com ThunderX product page Archived November 24, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.
1 2 3 De Gelas, Johan (15 June 2016). "Investigating the Cavium ThunderX". Anandtech. Retrieved 8 March 2017.
↑ Russell, John (31 May 2016). "Cavium Unveils ThunderX2 Plans, Reports ARM Traction is Growing". HPC Wire. Retrieved 8 March 2017.
↑ "⚙ D30510 Vulcan is now ThunderX2T99". reviews.llvm.org.
↑ Kampman, Jeff (5 January 2018). "Scaling Raven Ridge with David Kanter: The TR Podcast 191". Tech Report. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
↑ "Cray Adds ARM Option to XC50 Supercomputer | TOP500 Supercomputer Sites". www.top500.org. Retrieved 2017-11-14. Cray claims its ARM compiler demonstrated better performance in two-thirds of 135 benchmarks, and much better performance – 20 percent or more – in one-third of them, compared to open source ARM compilers from LLVM and GNU. The Cray ThunderX2 blades can be mixed with other XC50 blades outfitted with Intel Xeon-SP or Xeon Phi processors and NVIDIA Tesla GPUs. Both air-cooled and liquid-cooled options are available. Cray already has one customer lined up for the ThunderX2-powered XC50: the Great Western 4 (GW4) Alliance, a research consortium of four UK universities (Bristol, Bath, Cardiff and Exeter). In January 2017, the alliance announced it had contracted Cray to build "Isambard," a 10,000-core ARM-based supercomputer, which will provide a Tier 2 HPC service. The UK’s Met Office was also involved on the deal, since it was interested in seeing how its weather and climate codes would run on such a machine. The system will be paid for out of a £3 million award from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). It’s scheduled to be fully deployed by the end of this year.
↑ http://biz.yahoo.com/e/110620/cavm8-k.html
↑ Company press release: Cavium Networks Completes Acquisition of Taiwan-Based Star Semiconductor
↑ Company press release: Cavium Networks Completes Acquisition of W&W Communications
↑ Company press release: Cavium Networks Completes Acquisition of MontaVista Software
↑ McGrath, Dylan (31 January 2011). "Cavium buys Chinese fabless chip firm". EE Times. Retrieved 17 February 2011.
↑ "Company Overview". Celestial Semiconductor. Archived from the original on 2011-03-09. Retrieved 17 February 2011.
↑ "Wavesat | CrunchBase". www.crunchbase.com. Retrieved 2016-07-10.
↑ Company press release: Cavium to Acquire Switching and SDN Specialist Xpliant to Accelerate Deployment of Software Defined Networks
↑ "Company press release: Cavium to Acquire QLogic - Opportunity to drive significant growth at scale in data center and storage markets". Archived from the original on 2017-01-14. Retrieved 2017-01-15.
↑ PALLADINO, Valentina (20 November 2017). "Marvell Technology to buy chipmaker Cavium for about $6 billion". Ars Technica. Retrieved 20 November 2017.

External links

Cavium website

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[SVBJ2011-1] "Cavium Networks Inc. returns to San Jose". Silicon Valley Business News. 8 July 2011. Retrieved 2015-01-08.

[2] New York Times Company Profile for Cavium Inc. Archived March 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.

[3] "Syed Ali's company Cavium gets acquired for $6 billion". techober.com. Retrieved 2017-11-24.

[4] Cavium.com: Cavium Octeon SoCs Product Table Archived October 20, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.

[5] Cavium.com: Cavium Octeon Plus SoCs Product Table Archived October 20, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.

[6] Cavium.com: Cavium Octeon II SoCs Product Table Archived October 20, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.

[7] Cavium.com: Cavium Octeon III SoCs Product Table Archived October 20, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.

[8] Cavium.com: Cavium Octeon III SoCs Product CN77XX Table Archived October 20, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.

[9] De Gelas, Johan (16 December 2014). "ARM Challenging Intel in the Server Market". Anandtech. Retrieved 8 March 2017.

[10] Cavium.com ThunderX product page Archived November 24, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.

[ThunderX_review-11] 1 2 3 De Gelas, Johan (15 June 2016). "Investigating the Cavium ThunderX". Anandtech. Retrieved 8 March 2017.

[12] Russell, John (31 May 2016). "Cavium Unveils ThunderX2 Plans, Reports ARM Traction is Growing". HPC Wire. Retrieved 8 March 2017.

[13] "⚙ D30510 Vulcan is now ThunderX2T99". reviews.llvm.org.

[14] Kampman, Jeff (5 January 2018). "Scaling Raven Ridge with David Kanter: The TR Podcast 191". Tech Report. Retrieved 5 January 2018.

[Cray-15] "Cray Adds ARM Option to XC50 Supercomputer | TOP500 Supercomputer Sites". www.top500.org. Retrieved 2017-11-14. Cray claims its ARM compiler demonstrated better performance in two-thirds of 135 benchmarks, and much better performance – 20 percent or more – in one-third of them, compared to open source ARM compilers from LLVM and GNU. The Cray ThunderX2 blades can be mixed with other XC50 blades outfitted with Intel Xeon-SP or Xeon Phi processors and NVIDIA Tesla GPUs. Both air-cooled and liquid-cooled options are available. Cray already has one customer lined up for the ThunderX2-powered XC50: the Great Western 4 (GW4) Alliance, a research consortium of four UK universities (Bristol, Bath, Cardiff and Exeter). In January 2017, the alliance announced it had contracted Cray to build "Isambard," a 10,000-core ARM-based supercomputer, which will provide a Tier 2 HPC service. The UK’s Met Office was also involved on the deal, since it was interested in seeing how its weather and climate codes would run on such a machine. The system will be paid for out of a £3 million award from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). It’s scheduled to be fully deployed by the end of this year.

[16] ttp://biz.yahoo.com/e/110620/cavm8-k.html

[17] Company press release: Cavium Networks Completes Acquisition of Taiwan-Based Star Semiconductor

[18] Company press release: Cavium Networks Completes Acquisition of W&W Communications

[19] Company press release: Cavium Networks Completes Acquisition of MontaVista Software

[20] McGrath, Dylan (31 January 2011). "Cavium buys Chinese fabless chip firm". EE Times. Retrieved 17 February 2011.

[CSOverview-21] "Company Overview". Celestial Semiconductor. Archived from the original on 2011-03-09. Retrieved 17 February 2011.

[22] "Wavesat | CrunchBase". www.crunchbase.com. Retrieved 2016-07-10.

[23] Company press release: Cavium to Acquire Switching and SDN Specialist Xpliant to Accelerate Deployment of Software Defined Networks

[24] "Company press release: Cavium to Acquire QLogic - Opportunity to drive significant growth at scale in data center and storage markets". Archived from the original on 2017-01-14. Retrieved 2017-01-15.

[25] PALLADINO, Valentina (20 November 2017). "Marvell Technology to buy chipmaker Cavium for about $6 billion". Ars Technica. Retrieved 20 November 2017.