LSI to buy AMCC's 3ware RAID adapter business

LSI Corporation has announced that it has signed agreement to acquire the 3ware RAID adapter business of Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (AMCC) for approximately $20 million in cash.

3ware family of products includes SAS and SATA RAID adapters used in high-capacity storage solutions. AMCC has recently announced that, their 3ware SAS and SATA RAID Controller Drivers are VMware Ready Certified for VMware ESX 3.5.

AMCC was stressing the advantages of using dedicated SAS and SATA controllers for real-world serial storage environments to sell its products.

"The indirect channel plays an important role in delivering today's increasingly capable, yet often complex storage solutions to customers of all sizes," said Abhi Talwalkar, LSI president and chief executive officer. "The addition of the 3ware business to the LSI storage portfolio uniquely positions us to provide an unmatched breadth of rich storage solutions coupled with the outstanding channel support needed to help channel partners maximize their effectiveness."

There are few players in this RAID controller semiconductor market. With this purchase of AMCC RAID adapter business, LSI, which is already a leader in this segment has further consolidated its position in SAS and SATA storage solutions semiconductor market. The other active semiconductor vendors in this market are Broadcom, Vitesse, Marvell, and PMC-Sierra (not by any order and might be incomplete).