Marvell Technology, Inc. (MRVL)

Marvell Technology announced on November 2, 2026 that it will acquire Lumentum, a maker of lasers and optical parts, in an all-stock deal 1.

Each Lumentum share converts into 4.500 Marvell shares, and current Marvell stockholders would own about 67 percent of the combined company 1.

The companies expect the deal to close in the first half of calendar year 2028, after approval by both sets of stockholders and by regulators 1.

Marvell said the same day that its third-quarter fiscal 2027 revenue is consistent with earlier guidance, with the midpoint kept and the range narrowed to plus or minus 2 percent 1. That guidance, given on August 27, was $3.150 billion, plus or minus 5 percent 4.

The last full quarter on file, the second of fiscal 2027, brought record revenue of $2.739 billion, up 37 percent from a year earlier 4. Chief executive Matt Murphy said Data Center revenue growth accelerated to 46 percent 4.

On October 22, 2026 Marvell also signed a revolving credit agreement allowing borrowings of up to $3 billion, with none drawn at signing 3. Before the stockholder votes, the two companies will file a Form S-4 with a joint proxy statement 2.

Marvell describes itself as a fabless supplier of data infrastructure chips, meaning it designs chips and has others make them 6.

Much of its reach came from mergers, and its filing names those with Cavium, Aquantia, Inphi and Innovium 6. A term loan dated December 7, 2020 financed the Inphi purchase 6.

In the year ended February 3, 2024, revenue was $5,507.7 million, and communications and other made up 60 percent of it while data center made up 40 percent 6.

Marvell lost money in that stretch, with net losses of $933.4 million in the year ended February 3, 2024 and $885.0 million in the year ended February 1, 2025 6.

Revenue then reached $5,767.3 million in the year ended February 1, 2025, with data center at $4,164.2 million, or 72 percent 6.

In fiscal 2026, revenue was $8.2 billion, 42 percent above the year before 6. Data center sales rose 46 percent and communications and other rose 31 percent 6.

The company says the data center growth was driven by AI-related demand for its custom products and electro-optics, and that communications and other recovered after an inventory correction among customers 6.

On August 14, 2025 Marvell sold its automotive ethernet business to Infineon Technologies for $2.5 billion in cash and recorded a pre-tax gain of $1.8 billion 6. That gain sits in interest income and other, net, which was $1,926.3 million for the year 6.

On February 2, 2026 it bought Celestial AI, a maker of photonic interconnect technology, paying about $1.3 billion in cash and issuing about 24.5 million shares 6. On February 10, 2026 it bought XConn Technologies, a maker of PCIe and CXL switching chips, for about $280.0 million in cash and about 2.1 million shares 6.

On March 31, 2026 Nvidia bought 2.0 million shares of a new Series A Convertible Preferred Stock from Marvell for $2.0 billion 7.

Data center

Data center is the larger business, at $6,100.3 million or 74 percent of revenue in the year ended January 31, 2026, up from $4,164.2 million 6. It covers chips for AI systems, switches, storage and servers in cloud and company data centers 6.

Custom chips are built to one customer's specification, on the 5 nanometer process in recent years, with 3 nanometer designs in progress and a 2 nanometer platform in development 6.

Interconnect products move data between servers, switches and data centers and include optical signal processors, laser drivers, silicon photonics and chips for copper cables 6. Teralynx data center switches reach capacities of 51.2 terabits a second and beyond 6.

New work includes UALink and ESUN switches for linking AI chips, and the PCIe and CXL switches that came with XConn 6.

Communications and other

This line brought $2,094.3 million, or 26 percent of revenue, covering enterprise networking, carrier equipment, consumer devices and industrial uses 6. It also holds the Prestera Ethernet switches, QLogic Fibre Channel adapters and OCTEON processors 6.

Customers, places and rivals

One distributor accounted for 37 percent of net revenue and one direct customer for 14 percent in the year ended January 31, 2026 6.

By destination of shipment, China took 36 percent of revenue, Taiwan 20 percent and the United States 14 percent 6. The filing warns these destinations do not always show where end customers are 6.

Named rivals include Broadcom, Nvidia, Credo, Astera Labs, Lightmatter, Alchip and MediaTek 6. The company expects US export limits on certain Chinese customers to keep weighing on revenue 6.

People, sites and problems

Matt Murphy is chairman and chief executive 1. Daniel Durn became chief financial officer on June 15, 2026, after serving as Adobe's finance chief, when Willem Meintjes resigned 8.

Marvell employed 7,480 people as of January 31, 2026, and owned 983,000 square feet of facilities in the United States 6.

Google and Nvidia

Marvell and Google signed a commercial agreement on July 29, 2026 for custom chips that attach to Google's TPU ecosystem, including AI inference accelerators and storage controllers 5.

On August 18, 2026 Marvell issued Google a warrant for up to 58,970,907 shares, most of which vest as Google buys custom products, one tranche for each $500 million of such revenue 5.

The umbrella, in words

Marvell owns its operating subsidiaries, which its annual report's Exhibit 21.1 lists and which include Inphi Corporation, Innovium, Inc. and Marvell eSilicon LLC 10.

Two merger subsidiaries, Java Merger Sub, Inc. and Java Merger Sub II, Inc., are wholly owned by Marvell and carry the Lumentum deal 2.

Nvidia holds the Series A preferred stock, convertible into up to about 21.8 million common shares, with dividends paid on an as-converted basis 7.

The companies expect the Lumentum deal to close in the first half of calendar year 2028, and the board of seven would add three Lumentum directors, including Michael Hurlston 1. Murphy would stay chairman and chief executive 1.

The merger agreement sets an outside date of November 1, 2027, which can be extended to February 1, May 1 and August 1, 2028 if regulatory approvals are missing 2.

Marvell would owe Lumentum a termination fee of $5.8 billion in some cases and $3.2 billion if regulators block the deal; Lumentum owes Marvell $2.9 billion in matching cases 2.

Marvell expects the deal to give line of sight to more than $1 billion in annual run-rate cost synergies and to add to non-GAAP earnings per share in the first year after closing 1.

For the third quarter of fiscal 2027, Marvell guided on August 27 to non-GAAP earnings of $1.10 per share, plus or minus $0.05 4.

Futurum Group reported that at its October 6 Investor Day Marvell set a fiscal 2031 revenue target of $70 billion to $90 billion, including about $30 billion of custom silicon 9.

How it operates

Marvell designs chips for data infrastructure, the equipment that moves, stores, processes and secures data, from the core of cloud data centers to the edge of networks. It is fabless, meaning it designs chips and hires outside foundries to make them. It sells custom chips built to one customer's specification, known as ASICs (application specific integrated circuits), for AI, data center, networking, storage, aerospace and defense uses; interconnects, the signal processors, laser drivers and amplifiers that carry data inside cloud data centers, between them and across carrier networks; Ethernet switches, adapters and transceivers; OCTEON data processors and NITROX security processors; QLogic Fibre Channel adapters that link servers to storage; and Bravera controllers for hard disks and solid-state drives, which every current hard-disk maker uses. 25262728293031323334

It sells to the original equipment manufacturers and original design manufacturers that design and build finished devices, and to distributors; in fiscal 2026 direct customers took 57% of revenue and distributors 43%. Sales are concentrated: the ten largest customers took 82%. One distributor, Distributor A, took 37%, up from 24% two years earlier, and one direct customer, Customer A, took 14%, after 13% the year before and less than a tenth the year before that. At the year's end four customers accounted for 73% of the money owed to it. In the newest quarter, the three months to early August 2026, Distributor A took 44% and Customer A 16%. 353637383940

Filings beyond the annual report name some of its largest cloud buyers. In December 2024 Marvell expanded a strategic collaboration with Amazon Web Services and issued an Amazon affiliate a warrant, a right to buy up to 4,180,683 Marvell shares, most of it vesting only as Amazon buys its products through January 2030, about 2.7 million shares on custom AI products. A second Amazon warrant, for up to 1,045,171 shares, came with the Celestial AI deal and vests on Amazon's purchases of photonic fabric products. In July 2026 Google signed a commercial agreement for custom chips around the TPU, its own AI processor, among them AI inference accelerators and storage, network and memory interface controllers, and received a warrant for up to 58,970,907 shares, most of which vest one tranche for each 500 million dollars of custom product revenue through fiscal 2033. The annual report books the first Amazon warrant as a reduction of revenue as the qualifying sales are made, and the company says it has design wins at all four of the largest US cloud companies. 414243444546474849

By where it ships, China took 3.0 billion dollars, 36.2% of fiscal 2026 revenue; Taiwan 1.7 billion, 20.2%, up 195.6% on the year; and the United States 1.2 billion, 14.3%, with other countries making up the remaining 29.2%. The filing warns that ship-to addresses say little about who buys: a substantial majority of what it ships to China goes to customers based outside China that have factories or contract manufacturers there, whose products then leave the country. Sales shipped to customers with operations in Asia made up about 77% of revenue. 505152

Marvell owns no factories for making, assembling, testing or packaging chips, which, it says, means it cannot cut costs as fast as companies that do. Most of its products are made by outside foundries in Taiwan, with other sources in China, Germany, South Korea, Singapore and the United States. Packaging and testing go to subcontractors mainly in Taiwan, Canada, Korea, Singapore and China, and some US government contracts restrict where that work may be done. It places firm orders up to 26 weeks before delivery and commits up to 52 weeks ahead to secure capacity; under capacity reservation agreements with foundries and substrate suppliers it has agreed to buy at least 458.2 million dollars of wafers, substrates and other products from fiscal 2027 through fiscal 2033. 5354555657

The specifics

Marvell went public in 2000 as Marvell Technology Group, a Bermuda-based company; in April 2021 a Delaware company, Marvell Technology, Inc., took over the MRVL listing as the new parent. It grew by merger, with Cavium, which brought QLogic's equity plans with it, Aquantia, Inphi and Innovium, and it bought Avera in fiscal 2021. In fiscal 2025 it restructured to put more research money into the data center and less into new products for other markets, cancelling some planned releases. In August 2025 it sold its automotive ethernet business to Infineon for 2.5 billion dollars in cash. In February 2026 it bought Celestial AI, whose Photonic Fabric links AI chips over an optical fabric, paying about 1.3 billion dollars in cash and about 24.5 million shares, with more due through fiscal 2029 if revenue milestones are met; and XConn, a maker of PCIe and CXL switches that link processors, accelerators and pooled memory across a rack. 585960616263646566676869

Its chips are built on intellectual property for the most advanced manufacturing processes: it has completed multiple 5 nanometer designs, is working through 3 nanometer designs and is developing products at 2 nanometers, 1.4 nanometers and below, using advanced packaging that joins several chips side by side or stacked in one package. It holds over 10,000 issued patents and pending applications, expiring from 2026 to 2046, and says it does not depend substantially on any single patent. It calls the power efficiency of its chips a key competitive advantage, because energy is a substantial expense for its customers. 7071727374

It names its competitors: AMD, Alchip, Astera Labs, Ayar Labs, Broadcom, Cisco, Credo, Intel, Global Unichip, Lightmatter, MACOM, MediaTek, Microchip, Montage, Nvidia, NXP, Phison, Qualcomm, Rambus, Ranovus, Realtek, Semtech, Silicon Motion and Socionext. It adds that some of its customers have chosen to develop certain chips themselves. One of those rivals became an investor after the year closed: in March 2026 Nvidia paid 2.0 billion dollars for Marvell convertible preferred stock, alongside a partnership to connect Marvell's custom processors, which it calls XPUs, and its scale-up networking with Nvidia's AI infrastructure. 75767778

Trade with China shapes the business. US export controls, among them the addition of certain companies to the Entity List, the Commerce Department's list of restricted foreign buyers, have dampened demand for its products; some sales need export licenses, which have at times been delayed or denied; and the company expects the restrictions on certain Chinese customers to keep affecting its revenue. It adds that doubts about US suppliers' reliability have led some Chinese customers to stockpile its products or replace them. Defense rules reach it too: part of the Avera business needs facility security clearances, and because Marvell was organized in Bermuda when it bought Avera, it signed agreements with the US Department of Defense to insulate that work from foreign ownership, control or influence. 79808182628384

What drives growth, line by line

Revenue rose 42.1% in fiscal 2026 to 8.2 billion dollars, from 5.8 billion. The filing credits a 46% rise in data center sales and a 31% rise in communications and other, partly offset by the automotive ethernet business sold at the start of the third quarter. Gross margin rose 9.7 points, mainly because fiscal 2025 had carried 357.9 million dollars of restructuring impairments, and also because higher sales spread fixed costs further, partly offset by a shift in product mix. Operating income swung from a loss of 720.3 million dollars to a profit of 1.3 billion, and net income of 2.7 billion includes a 1.8 billion dollar pre-tax gain on the automotive ethernet sale. 85868788899064

Data Center. The largest line: 6.1 billion dollars, 74.4% of revenue, up 46.5% from 4.2 billion, and up from 2,216.7 million dollars, 40% of revenue, two years earlier. The filing credits AI-related demand for its custom products and its electro-optics, the chips that drive optical links. 509192

Communications and Other. 2.1 billion dollars, 25.6% of revenue, up 30.6% from 1.6 billion. The filing says this market kept recovering after a period of inventory correction, as customers' inventories returned to normal and its products won strong adoption, while the sale of the automotive ethernet business took revenue out. Since the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026 the line gathers what used to be reported as enterprise networking, carrier infrastructure, consumer and automotive and industrial; two years earlier those markets together brought in 3,291.0 million dollars, 60% of revenue. 509392879491

In the second quarter of fiscal 2027, the three months to early August 2026, revenue was 2.7 billion dollars, 37% more than a year earlier. Data center sales rose 46%, which the quarterly report credits to AI-related demand for electro-optics, custom, storage and switching products, and made up 79% of the quarter's revenue; communications and other rose 10%. 959697

What comes next, in the company's own words: the Celestial AI purchase is expected to accelerate its connectivity strategy for AI and cloud data centers; it is developing UALink and ESUN switches, which tie many AI processors together into larger systems; and it expects US export restrictions on certain Chinese customers to continue to affect its revenue. 989981

The read's section on the people who run it is on the People tab.

What the desk infers Inferred

1. Inferred

   Customer A, the direct customer behind 14% of fiscal 2026 revenue, is most likely Amazon, buying the custom AI chips Marvell designs for Amazon Web Services.

   Because

   • Customer A took 14% of revenue in fiscal 2026 and 13% the year before, after less than a tenth the year before that. 38
   • In December 2024 Marvell expanded its strategic collaboration with Amazon Web Services and issued an Amazon affiliate a warrant that vests mostly on Amazon's purchases, about 2.7 million shares of it on custom AI products. 4142
   • The annual report credits the data center's growth to AI-related demand for its custom products and electro-optics. 92
   • Amazon holds a second warrant, from the Celestial AI deal, that vests on its purchases of photonic fabric products. 43
   • Customer A still took 16% in the newest quarter. 40
   Confidence 55 of 100Wrong if A filing or disclosure that identifies Customer A as a company other than Amazon or one of its affiliates.
2. Inferred

   Marvell's growth now rests on a few cloud companies' data-center building, including their own custom-chip programs, and it rewards their purchases with a stake in itself: the warrants it has given Amazon and Google vest mostly as those companies buy.

   Because

   • Data center made up 74.4% of fiscal 2026 revenue, and the filing credits its growth to custom products and electro-optics. 5092
   • The share of sales from custom or semi-custom products has been rising for the last few years. 100
   • The ten largest customers took 82% of revenue. 37
   • Amazon's warrants vest on its purchases of custom AI and photonic fabric products, and Google's vests one tranche for each 500 million dollars of custom product revenue through fiscal 2033. 424346
   • The company says it has design wins at all four of the largest US cloud companies. 49
   Confidence 75 of 100Wrong if A year in which the ten largest customers take well under three quarters of revenue while data center sales keep growing, showing the growth spread across many buyers.
3. Inferred

   A large part of Marvell's data-center sales passes through one distributor, Distributor A, rather than going straight to the companies that use the chips.

   Because

   • Distributor A took 37% of fiscal 2026 revenue, more than the whole communications and other line's 25.6%, so much of what it bought must have been data-center products. 3850
   • In the newest quarter Distributor A took 44% of revenue while all of communications and other made up 21%, so most of its purchases must have been data-center products. 4097
   • Its share rose from 24% to 34% to 37% over the three years the annual report shows, while the data center's share went from 40% to 72% to 74%. 3891
   Confidence 80 of 100Wrong if A filing showing that the sales counted under Distributor A are shipped straight to named end customers under their own contracts, with the distributor acting only as a billing or logistics agent.