(TECH) Broadcom Buys Israeli Start-Up

"US semiconductor company Broadcom has bought Israeli data center networking equipment developer Dune Networks for $178 million, according to Globes, Israel's leading business daily. The deal is Broadcom's fourth acquisition in Israel.

Dune Networks was established in 2000, and has received $50 million in venture capital funding from Pitango Venture Capital, Evergreen Venture Partners and other investors.

The company develops switch fabric solutions for data center networking equipment. With companies looking to add bandwidth at data centers to meet the requirements of cloud computing, Dune Networks has developed a scalable chipset that supports bandwidth speeds of up to 100Gbps per port and can connect more than ten thousand servers (ports) in a single deployment.

Executives at the two companies pointed to the development of cloud computing as a driving force for the deal. Broadcom VP Martin Lund, who is also general manager of the company's network switching business, said, 'Dune's massively scalable interconnect fabric, combined with our Ethernet products, augments our portfolio of solutions for data center networking equipment.'

Dune employs 100 workers, with offices in Yakum in central Israel and in Sunnyvale, California." (source)