Infineon enhances its automotive microcontrollers' position with $2.5B Marvell automotive business acquisition

Infineon Technologies is beefing up its system capabilities for software-defined vehicles with the $2.5 billion acquisition of Marvell Technology’s Automotive Ethernet business. This deal complements and expands Infineon Technologies' market-leading microcontroller business.

The transaction is subject to regulatory approval.

Ethernet has become a key enabling technology for low-latency, high-bandwidth communication, which is crucial for software-defined vehicles.

Besides being a vehicle enabler, Infineon says Ethernet has “significant” potential in adjacent use fields such as humanoid robots. The planned investment will strengthen Infineon’s already strong footprint in the U.S., including extensive R&D activities.

Infineon will use existing liquidity and incur additional debt to fund the planned all-cash acquisition of Marvell’s Automotive Ethernet business. Infineon has secured acquisition financing from banks. After meeting closing conditions, including regulatory approvals, Infineon expects the acquisition to close within the calendar year 2025.

Jochen Hanebeck, CEO of Infineon. “We will leverage this highly complementary Ethernet technology with our existing, broad product portfolio to provide our customers with even more comprehensive, leading solutions for software-defined vehicles. The transaction will support our profitable growth strategy, including new opportunities in physical AI such as humanoid robots.” 

In-vehicle potential

Marvell’s Brightlane™ Automotive Ethernet portfolio of PHY transceivers, switches, and bridges supports network data rates ranging from today’s 100 Mbps (megabits per second) to the market-leading 10 Gbps (gigabits per second).

It also supports the security and safety features required for today’s and tomorrow’s in-vehicle networks. 

However, the technology Infineon is only one element of the Marvell business.

It also has an established automobile customer base. Marvell’s Automotive Ethernet business includes over 50 automotive manufacturers, including eight leading OEMs.

The customer relationships are backed by a design-win pipeline of around $4 billion until 2030 and an innovation roadmap, paving the way for future revenue growth.

Infineon expects the business to generate revenue of $225 – $250 million in the 2025 calendar year with a gross margin of around 60%. This is based on the strong potential for further acceleration through Infineon’s unmatched access to global automotive customers.

Marvell’s data center pivot

Marvell's deal to sell its Automotive Ethernet business comes as the company pivots its focus to being a key player in the data center market.

"Marvell has transformed itself into a leading data infrastructure solutions provider, with the data center end market driving 75% of consolidated revenue in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2025," said Matt Murphy, Chairman and CEO of Marvell.

He added, "With Infineon's optimized platform for automotive applications, we are confident the Automotive Ethernet business is well positioned for continued growth and success."

Evidence of Marvell’s potential in data centers was on display at the recent OFC 2025 trade show.

In collaboration with Active Electrical Cable (AEC) partners 3M, Amphenol Communications Solutions (ACS), Broadex, Luxshare-Tech, and TE Connectivity, Marvell conducted demonstrations of both 800G and 1.6T Alaska® A 1.6T PAM4 DSPs for AECs.

As bandwidths increase, AECs—copper cables supplemented by DSP technology originally developed for optical modules for longer distances and greater bandwidth—are being used for in-rack scale-up fabrics.

According to the 650 Group’s Active Electrical Cable Quarterly Market and Long-Term Forecast Report, AEC silicon is expected to grow at 61% per year to reach $1.3 billion by 2029.

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