Processor maker Cavium is to buy California-based switching firm Xpliant for US$90m in a bid to speed up the delivery of software defined networks (SDN).

The acquisition follows an investment of $15m Cavium made in Xpliant in June 2014.

The balance will be paid as $40m in cash and $35m in stocks.

Cavium will integrate Xpliant’s switching technology into its infrastructure product offerings ThunderX, Oocteon and LiquidIO as it bids to increase its presence in data centers, service providers and enterprise markets.

Xpliant develops switching silicon that supports high port densities and runs at multi-hundred gigabit to multi-terabit per second speeds.

According to Cavium president and CEO Syed Ali, Xpliant's products will allow Cavium to offer complete end to end solutions for computing, networking and storage as the firm develops products for next generation of virtualised software defined infrastructure.

Demand for capacity in data centers is booming as growth is driven by mobile applications and social networking, Ali said.

Global mobile data traffic is projected to increase nearly 11-fold between 2013 and 2018, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 61%, according to Cavium’s figures.

Cloud data center IP traffic will double between 2014 and 2017, growing at a CAGR of 30%, according to Cisco's Visual Networking Index and Global Cloud Index.

"This product line significantly expands our addressable market and will be an exciting addition to our portfolio of solutions for the data center, service provider and enterprise markets," Ali said.