Intel buys Ethernet card specialist

SAN FRANCISO—Intel Corp. has acquired the assets of network connectivity solutions company NetEffect Inc. for $8 million, the company said Wednesday (Oct. 15).

NetEffect (Austin, Texas) specializes in Ethernet products and technologies for server compute clusters.

In a statement, Tom Swinford, general manager of Intel's LAN Access Division, said the combination of Intel and NetEffect technology would allow Intel to address customers' 10 Gigabit Ethernet needs, including server virtualization, convergence of network and storage traffic, and server compute clusters.

NetEffect was a provider of solutions incorporating iWARP, an Ethernet alternative to InfiniBand. Last year the company introduced a dual-port 10-Gbit/second Ethernet card that it claimed closes in on the throughput, latency and cost of Infiniband, the performance leader in data center networking.

NetEffect's product portfolio includes 1 Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) adapters for servers and blade configurations as well as 10 GbE ASICs, Intel (Santa Clara, Calif.) said. The purchase includes the company's Ethernet product portfolio, intellectual property and technology, Intel said.

NetEffect was founded in 1998 as Banderacom, a company focused on InfiniBand adapters and 16-port IB switch, and was recapitalized in 2004 as NetEffect. Thirty employees, primarily engineers, have joined Intel team from NetEffect and will continue to be based in Austin, Intel said.