Intel signed an agreement to buy fellow chipmaker Barefoot Networks in a deal that will boost its hyperscale cloud data center business. The companies didn’t disclose the price.

The acquisition follows a spate of recent silicon vendor acquisitions and comes as Intel exited the 5G business — and reportedly lost a bidding war with rival Nvidia for another networking interconnect superstar, Mellanox. Nvidia recently paid $6.9 billion for Mellanox (the acquisition hasn’t yet closed), while Intel reportedly bid $5.5 billion for that chipmaker.

Barefoot makes Ethernet switch silicon and software for use in the data center, and it’s probably best known for its P4 programmable Tofino Ethernet switches that are widely used for interconnect in major cloud providers’ data centers.

In a blog post, Navin Shenoy, executive vice president and general manager of Intel's Data Center Group, said Barefoot’s data center interconnects played a key role in the acquisition.

“The addition of Barefoot Networks will support our focus on end-to-end cloud networking and infrastructure leadership and will allow Intel to continue to deliver on new workloads, experiences, and capabilities for our data center customers,” Shenoy wrote. “Barefoot Networks will add deep expertise in cloud network architectures, P4-programmable high-speed data paths, switch silicon development, P4 compilers, driver software, network telemetry, and computational networking.”

Intel expects the transaction to close in the third quarter of 2019. At that time, Barefoot CEO Craig Barratt and the rest of the Santa Clara, California-based team will join Intel.

Charles King, president and principal analyst at Pund-IT, called the deal “a solid, strategic move that should enable Intel to advance and expand its data center portfolio quickly and cost-effectively.”

The move is a smart one for Intel, said Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst at ZK Research, in an email to SDxCentral.

“For all of Intel’s success, they have never been that strong in hyperscale data centers, particularly in the area of networking,” he wrote. “Their arch-nemesis, Nvidia, bought Mellanox to drive greater integration between compute and networking, and Intel can do the same. Barefoot’s Tofino chip is well regarded as best in class for data center interconnect. As the world becomes more distributed and edge driven, having the capability to connect the cloud to the edge gives Intel a strong competitive position. This also aligns well with the edge push that Intel has had over the past year. It could address compute and now it can bring networking into the fold.”

But, Kerravala noted, Intel has a “history of failed acquisitions on the network side.” He cited Fulcrum Microsystems and Trillium Digital Systems as two such failed acquisitions. When it comes to Barefoot, “the best thing Intel could do is leave them alone but use them strategically,” he added.

In addition to Nvidia’s Mellanox purchase, Intel’s latest acquisition comes on the heels of several other mergers and acquisitions in the silicon space.

Last week Germany’s Infineon Technologies reached a deal to acquire Cypress Semiconductor for about $10 billion. And last month Marvell said it will buy ASIC company Avera Semiconductor for $650 million and then sold its WiFi connectivity business to NXP for $1.76 billion a week later.

Marvell also paid $6 billion for Cavium in July 2018, and it acquired Ethernet technology manufacturer Aquantia for $452 million in May.

So who is next in the current wave of chipmaker consolidation? “Innovium is the only small guy left,” Kerravala said.