Having ended 2025 with a multibillion-dollar deal, Marvell Technology has kicked off 2026 with a $540 million move to acquire XConn Technologies, a provider of advanced PCI express (PCIe) and compute express link (CXL) switching silicon.

The deal, which is expected to close in early 2026, sees Marvell expand its switching portfolio with XConn’s PCIe and CXL products, including its Apollo 2 hybrid switch, which can support both protocol configurations ranging from 64 to 260 lanes.

Marvell said the acquisition will bolster its place in the market and meet the growing demand for PCIe and CXL switches, alongside its existing UALink-based offerings.

“This combination creates a compelling switching platform for accelerated infrastructure, advancing Marvell’s connectivity strategy for next-generation AI and cloud data centers,” Marvell CEO Matt Murphy noted in a statement. “With XConn, we add proven PCIe and CXL switch products, IP, and engineering talent to expand our UALink scale-up switch team.

XConn Technologies was founded in 2020 and develops switch chips for both CXL and PCIe.

PCIe switching has long been foundational to traditional computing architectures, but is increasingly emerging for use in accelerated infrastructure. CXL, meanwhile, has a familiar home in the data center space, used to support memory pooling and resource disaggregation in high-performance environments.

XConn’s offerings cover both protocols, with its TSMC-made N16 and N5 technologies, when interconnected, providing up to 256 lanes for a total of 2,048 Gb/s of switching capacity.

The California-based firm’s release of its Apollo 2 hybrid switch last March sought to bridge both worlds, integrating both CXL 3.1 and PCIe Gen 6.2 onto a single chip.

In purchasing XConn, Marvell plans to create a “significantly larger, integrated” team working on switching silicon to meet customer demands across all protocols, though with a particular focus on UALink switching.

“At XConn we have built the industry’s highest-port-count advanced PCIe 5 and PCIe 6 switching portfolio to support the next generation of accelerated infrastructure,” XConn CEO Gerry Fan proclaimed. “Marvell brings cutting-edge SerDes technology, a leading process roadmap, deep hyperscale customer relationships, and global scale. We share a common vision for high-speed connectivity as the foundation of modern data centers, and we look forward to working together to help customers drive new waves of AI innovation.”

XConn could follow behind chip startup Celestial AI, which is the subject of a $3.25 billion takeover by Marvell. Confirmed in December 2025, that deal would see Marvell further build out its data center capacity by adding Celestial’s photonic interconnect technologies.

Referencing the December deal, CEO Murphy said: “Combined with our pending acquisition of Celestial AI, we will be well positioned to deliver customers the performance, flexibility, and architectural choice they need as AI systems grow in size and complexity.”