Intel Corporation today announced its acquisition of the assets of NetEffect Inc., a network connectivity solutions company specializing in Ethernet products and technologies for server compute clusters.

“NetEffect’s role as a data communications solution provider and the company’s technology will enhance Intel’s current Ethernet efforts,” said Tom Swinford, general manager, Intel LAN Access Division. “The combination of Intel and NetEffect technology will allow Intel to address our customers’ most important 10 Gigabit Ethernet needs, including server virtualization, convergence of network and storage traffic, and server compute clusters.”

Intel purchased NetEffect’s assets for $8 million, which include the company’s Ethernet product portfolio, intellectual property and technology. NetEffect was a provider of solutions incorporating iWARP, an Ethernet alternative to InfiniBand. NetEffect’s product portfolio includes 1 Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) adapters for servers and blade configurations as well as 10 GbE Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs).

Designed for multi-core processor-based servers and optimized for virtualization, Intel’s current portfolio of 10GbE server adapters includes single and dual port versions for both copper and fiber implementations. The NetEffect acquisition provides complementary High Performance Network Interface Card (NIC) products to Intel’s Ethernet portfolio.

NetEffect was founded in 1998 as Banderacom, a company focused on InfiniBand adapters and 16-port IB switch, and was recapitalized in 2004 as NetEffect. Thirty employees, primarily engineers, have joined the Intel team from NetEffect and will continue to be based in Austin, Texas.