Marvell has announced a definitive agreement to acquire XConn, a provider of PCI Express (PCIe) and Compute Express Link (CXL) switching silicon. Marvell says the deal expands its switching portfolio with XConn’s PCIe and CXL products and adds engineering talent to its Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink) scale-up switch team, targeting higher-bandwidth, lower-latency connectivity for multi-rack AI systems.
Marvell frames the acquisition around data center AI platform scaling, noting system designs are moving beyond single-rack deployments to larger, multi-rack configurations that require “a high-bandwidth, ultra-low latency scale-up fabric such as UALink” to connect large numbers of XPUs and enable more flexible resource sharing. Marvell describes UALink as a new open industry standard for scale-up connectivity, built on PCIe ecosystem innovation and “proven high-speed I/O techniques” to meet bandwidth, latency, and reach requirements for accelerated infrastructure.
XConn’s portfolio includes PCIe and CXL switch silicon at multiple generations. According to the announcement, XConn’s PCIe 5 and CXL 2.0 switches are in production, while its PCIe 6 and CXL 3.1 switches are sampling. Marvell also states XConn is “engaged with more than 20 customers to date,” and that XConn is “the industry’s first to deliver a hybrid switch supporting both CXL and PCIe on a single chip.”
Marvell positions the combined product lines around PCIe switching for accelerated infrastructure and CXL for memory disaggregation in modern data centers. It says “the combination of Marvell CXL memory-expansion controllers with XConn CXL switches will establish the industry’s most comprehensive CXL portfolio to support demanding AI workloads.” Marvell expects XConn CXL and PCIe switching products to begin contributing revenue in the second half of fiscal year 2027, and reports XConn is expected to become accretive to Marvell’s non-GAAP earnings at that time, ramping to approximately $100 million in revenue in fiscal 2028.
The companies value the transaction at approximately $540 million, paid as approximately 60% cash and 40% stock, with the stock portion based on Marvell’s 20-day volume-weighted average price (VWAP). Marvell says the stock consideration is expected to represent approximately 2.5 million shares of Marvell common stock. The transaction is expected to close in early calendar 2026, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.
Source: Marvell
