Tantra Analyst

Marvell Technologies held its yearly industry analyst day on Dec 6^th, 2022, at its headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The overwhelming message from the event was how its relentless focus on the Data Infrastructure market across mainly four segments— Data Center, Carrier Infrastructure, Automotive, and Enterprise Networking—is paying off.  

All the speakers, including the COO, President, CTO, Chief Development Officer, all the business heads, and the breakout session leads, drove this message home with good proof points. Many guest speakers from present there physically or through videos endorsed Marvell’s technology and the collaboration between the companies.

Here are some of the key points from the presentations:

Data Infrastructure company

• 88% of Q3 FY22 revenues from data infrastructure business (12% from the consumer)

• Serving the majority of the top customers in all the four target segments

• Revenue doubling between 2021 and 2023e (~$3B to ~$6B)

Silicon Strategy

• Technology leadership and platform approach – compute + packaging + interconnect

• Changed from fast follower to technology leader (E.g., 5nm and 3nm nodes)

• Product leadership – compute, electro-optics, networking, security, storage

• Flexible business model – merchant, custom, hybrid

Data Processing Unit (DPU)

• Advantages of CPU-centric (E.g., Intel) vs. power optimized compute+ specialized accelerators + interconnects

• Industry’s first 5nm DPU, shipping across segments

• Strong endorsement from Nokia and Vodafone

Switching, PHY & Optical Interconnects

• Teralynx switching architecture leadership

• Interconnect speeds in data centers are increasing rapidly (up to 1.6 Tbps)

• Enabler for distributed data centers

• Leadership in PHY (10G, 200G, 400G, 800G, 5nm onboard 1.6T)

• Complete data center networking platform

• Endorsement from Ruckus Networks / CommScope

Storage and Memory

• Leading in HDD/SSD controllers

• Growth sectors – preamp, accelerators, & CXL solutions

• Endorsements from Microsoft, Micron, and Toshiba

Automotive

• Zonal architecture replacing point-to-point connection, domain consolidation

• Strong Ethernet adoption

• Automotive semiconductor content is increasing (Up to $125 per car)

Custom Silicon Business

• > 25% of SAM

• Leveraging all of Marvell’s technologies

• Unique business model, unmatched in the industry

Challenge of AI training platforms

• AI to surpass human intelligence in 2045

• Scalable, fully disaggregated data center, enabled by integrated optically connected computing, is the only solution

• Marvell best positioned for this future

Tantra’s take:

Although there were no announcements, the event gave a good overview of Marvell’s breadth of technology, range of products, and overarching strategy. Marvell’s portfolio might look like a disparate collection of products and technologies. But, the executives spun a nice cohesive story connecting the dots to position Marvell as a key enabler for the data infrastructure market across many segments. Among those, two are particularly interesting to me—Carrier Infrastructure and Automotive. I am also intrigued by their custom silicon business.

Marvell’s Carrier Infrastructure business is primarily driven by custom silicon. It supplies all major legacy vendors, including Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei, and ZTE. That domain expertise is helping them in the new 5G cloud-native, virtual / Open RAN space. They have two publicly announced partnerships with the leading 5G infra providers—Nokia and Samsung.

Marvell’s collaboration with Nokia seems to be pretty deep. Marvell helped Nokia when its in-house SoC efforts were delayed and failing. That relationship appears to have further developed and blossomed, resulting in the recent announcement of the latest SharkReef chipset portfolio, based on Marvell’s Octeon 10 5nm platform. The Nokia representative’s presence at the event and the talk about their strategic relationship with Marvell are noteworthy. This partnership should help Marvell in Europe and US, where Nokia has a solid presence despite some headwinds at Verizon. 

The relationship with Samsung seems to be progressing well too. Both companies, along with Vodafone, announced the collaboration for developing Open RAN systems in the UK and beyond. Partnership with Vodafone is crucial because it is at the forefront of Open RAN commercialization. However, it is not yet a ticket to success, as Vodafone is working with almost every Open RAN solution provider, including Marvell’s competitors, Intel and Qualcomm. In spite of developing solutions for many of its products, it is noteworthy that Samsung relies on Marvell to co-develop key RAN technologies like massive MIMO. This clearly shows the technical and product prowess of Marvell. This collaboration will be key to Marvell’s continued success in the telecom space as Samsung has the most robust financial position among all non-Chinese vendors and has been considerably gaining share in the US and Europe.

There hasn’t been much news about Marvell’s Chinese infrastructure customers, Huawei and ZTE. It’s unclear how the recent US Government sanctions on Huawei and other Chinese companies have affected those relationships.

In terms of products, the key differentiator for Marvell is its inline accelerators and transport solutions. During the event, Marvell reemphasized the importance of its inline, power-efficient RAN accelerators, compared to general-purpose CPUs or FPGAs, mocking Intel’s CPU approach. You can read more about this in my articles in Forbes and other publications.

Another critical factor that will help Marvell in the vRAN/Open RAN market is its close relationship with Hyperscalers and cloud players, who play an increasingly more prominent role in 5G networks.

Regarding the Automotive market, most of Marvell’s talk has been about ethernet solutions, including switching and PHY. However, I think its power-efficient Octeon processors can be an excellent fit for In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI), autonomous driving, and other systems. A couple of trends can help Marvell in that pursuit. The first is ongoing “Domain Consolidation,” replacing 10s of microcontrollers in today’s cars with beefy SoCs. This perfectly suits Marvell’s products and strategy.

Note: Check out Tantra’s Mantra podcast Episode #12 to know more about “Domain Consolidation” in the automotive industry.

Second, Marvell’s AI expertise and collaboration with hyperscalers could be a significant asset in autonomous driving. Thirdly, its custom silicon business model is a perfect fit for the major auto OEMs who like to be involved in system development and offer their customers a unique, differentiated experience. Marvell already has a relationship with many of these OEMs through the ethernet business. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear more about this in the near future.

Closing thoughts:

At the event, Marvell painted an impressive picture of its story of being a leading data infrastructure player across key market segments. It seems to have the right products and partnerships in the two key industry segments I closely follow—Carrier Infrastructure and Automotive. In the Carrier Infrastructure space, its increasing collaboration with Nokia and Samsung bodes well for the future. In the Automotive market, it has the right technology/products, market conditions, and business model to expand further.