Mellanox Technologies


Mellanox Technologies Ltd. is an Israeli-American multinational supplier of computer networking products based on InfiniBand and Ethernet technology. Mellanox offers adapters, switches, software, cables and silicon for markets including high-performance computing, data centers, cloud computing, computer data storage and financial services.
On March 11, 2019, Nvidia announced its intent to acquire the company for $6.9 billion. Other companies willing to acquire Mellanox were Intel, Xilinx and Microsoft. On April 16, 2020, it was announced that it closed the deal on April 27, 2020, with the approval from the Chinese antitrust authorities.

History

1999–2009

Mellanox was founded in 1999 by former Israeli executives of Intel Corporation and Galileo Technology Eyal Waldman, Shai Cohen, Roni Ashuri, Michael Kagan, Evelyn Landman, Eitan Zahavi, Shimon Rottenberg, Udi Katz and Alon Webman. Eyal Waldman founded Mellanox in the Israel city of Yokne'am. Initially founded as an integrated circuit manufacturer, it evolved into a producer of complete end-to-end systems by 2009. The company raised over $89 million in 3 financing rounds of venture capital.
The company went public in 2007, with an initial public offering on NASDAQ that raised $102 million, and valued the company at over half a billion dollars. Created in 2009, Mellanox's investment fund was publicly launched in 2014.

2010–present

In 2010, Oracle Corporation became a major investor in the company, holding around 10% of its stock. Oracle uses InfiniBand technology in its Exadata and Exalogic appliances. Stock shares were also listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, until 2013 when the company de-listed itself, but remained on NASDAQ.
In February 2011, Mellanox acquired Voltaire Ltd., a provider of data center switches for about $218 million.
In 2016, Mellanox Technologies began to employ programmers in the Gaza Strip, in addition to its team of Israeli Arab programmers and programmers in Ramallah and Nablus. In 2016, Mellanox had revenues of $857 million. In December 2017, Mellanox announced it would start a new startup accelerator. Over 2017, shares in the company rose by 55 percent. That year, the company also made its largest acquisition with EZchip.
In 2019, Mellanox was acquired for $6.9 billion by Nvidia Corporation and it is a definite contender for the largest merger and acquisition deal in 2019.

Boardroom in 2018

The activist investor Starboard Value LP purchased a 10.7% stake in the company in November 2017. After acquiring 10.7%, Starboard wrote a letter to the company stating that Starboard attributed the company's "underperformance compared to other semiconductor companies" to "a pattern of weak execution that has included both excessive spending and missed growth opportunities". The letter called for "substantial change". The day after, on January 9, 2018, Mellanox announced it would immediately discontinue its 1550 nm silicon photonics development activities, with president and CEO Eyal Waldman saying the review of the silicon photonics business had started in May 2017. Mellanox also said it would fire 100 people, all in the US. At the time, the company employed 2,900 people, mostly in Israel.
In a "board battle," in January 2018, Starboard sent a letter to shareholders asking them to entirely replace the board of directors. On January 17, 2018, it was announced that Starboard was aiming to remove the entire board at Mellanox Technologies. At the time, Mellanox had a $3.3 billion market value. Starboard said it would nominate nine candidates for election to the company's board, including Starboard head Jeffrey Smith.

Acquisitions

In 2013 Mellanox acquired certain assets of XLoom Communications Ltd., including opto-electric chip-scale packaging, as well as hired XLoom's technology personnel. In July 2013, Mellanox acquired privately held Kotura, Inc., a developer of silicon photonics optical interconnect technology for high-speed networking. In July 2013, Mellanox acquired privately held IPtronics A/S, a designer of optical interconnect components for digital communications.
In July 2014, Mellanox acquired privately held Integrity Project, for its software connectivity, low-level development, real-time applications and security technology. In February 2016, Mellanox acquired publicly held EZchip Semiconductor, a provider of network processors and multi-core processors from EZchip's earlier acquisition of Tilera.

Manufacturing

Mellanox is a fabless semiconductor company. The current generation of its chips are produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp.

Products and market

Mellanox Technologies provides Ethernet and InfiniBand network adapters, switches and cables for servers and storage used in cloud and enterprise data centers based on internally developed integrated circuits. Mellanox offers interconnect products: adapters, switches, cables, software and silicon for a range of markets including high-performance computing, enterprise data centers, Web 2.0, cloud, storage and financial services.
In 2010, a press release from Oracle described Mellanox as "the premier switched fabric provider for enterprise data centers and high performance computing". According to the same press release, Mellanox's InfiniBand technology is faster, more scalable and provides higher throughput than alternative communications technologies.
Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, promoted Mellanox's InfiniBand technology.
Mellanox network adapter and switch ASICs support RDMA/RoCE technology, which are the basis of card and system level products:
Mellanox Technologies' InfiniBand products for computer clusters are claimed to be widely deployed in many of the TOP500 list of high-performance computers.

Storage

Mellanox also promotes its products for storage area networks, and pioneered Ethernet Storage Fabrics to replace legacy Fibre Channel SANs.

Global Operations

In addition to its global headquarters in the US, Mellanox has offices in Israel, Denmark, China, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and the United Kingdom.

Customers

Mellanox had two customers, Hewlett-Packard and Dell-EMC, each of which contributed more than 10% of the company's revenues.

Hiring practices

Mellanox outsourced some of its engineering to the West Bank. Rather than setting up offshore engineering centers in the Far East or Eastern Europe, Mellanox hired Palestinian engineers from Ramallah through a Palestinian outsourcing firm. In 2018, Waldman told a Tel Aviv conference hosted by Globes magazine that over 100 Palestinians are working on Mellanox projects.
Waldman had previously talked about Mellanox's plans to build a research and development center in Ramallah, even though it is more expensive than outsourcing to Eastern Europe.

Awards and recognition