Solarflare Communications

Solarflare Communications, now a subsidiary of Xilinx, operates at the forefront of high-performance networking solutions. The company was established in 2001 and, through a significant merger in 2006, integrated with Level 5 Networks, a Cambridge-based startup founded in 2002 by Steve Pope, David Riddoch, and Derek Roberts. This strategic consolidation enhanced its engineering capabilities, with a substantial research and development presence maintained in Cambridge, UK.

The firm specializes in the development and marketing of enterprise-level hardware and software designed to accelerate network performance. Its core products include ultra-low latency network interface cards (NICs), application acceleration software, and network capture systems. Solarflare's technology is particularly entrenched in the financial technology (FinTech) sector, where its solutions are utilized by major global exchanges, commercial banks, and hedge funds for applications like high-frequency trading that demand minimal data transfer delays. Beyond finance, its client base extends to cloud computing, high-performance computing (HPC), and virtualized data centers. The business model revolves around selling these specialized hardware components and licensing the accompanying software, which includes kernel-bypass technology like its Onload stack to reduce network overhead.

A pivotal moment in Solarflare's history was its acquisition by Xilinx, a leader in adaptive computing. The definitive agreement was announced in April 2019, following a two-year collaboration and a strategic investment from Xilinx in 2017. This acquisition was part of Xilinx's "data center first" strategy, aiming to merge its own FPGA, MPSoC, and ACAP technologies with Solarflare's NICs and software to create converged SmartNIC solutions. At the time of the acquisition, Russell Stern was the chief executive officer of Solarflare, a role he assumed in January 2004. The combination of these technologies has enabled the development of integrated, single-chip solutions capable of processing immense data packets with high efficiency.

Keywords: network interface cards, low latency, financial technology, data center, high-frequency trading, application acceleration, kernel bypass, SmartNIC, Xilinx, network capture