Barefoot Networks
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer networking |
| Founded | 2013 |
| Founder | Nick McKeown, Martin Izzard, Pat Bosshart, Stefanos Sidiropoulos, Dan Lenoski |
| Headquarters | Santa Clara , United States |
Key people | Craig H. Barratt (CEO 2017–2020) |
| Products | Programmable network switch silicon, Barefoot Tofino, Barefoot Deep Insight |
| Parent | Intel (since 2019) |
Barefoot Networks is a technology firm specializing in computer networking, headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The company develops and manufactures programmable network switch silicon, along with related systems and software solutions. In 2019, Intel completed the acquisition of Barefoot Networks.
Background
Established in 2013, Barefoot Networks received financial support from prominent investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Sequoia Capital. The founding team includes Nick McKeown, Martin Izzard, Pat Bosshart, and Stefanos Sidiropoulos, with Dan Lenoski joining as a co-founder in 2014. The company publicly launched in June 2016, revealing a funding round led by Goldman Sachs, AT&T, Dell, and Google. Later that year, further capital was invested by Alibaba Group and Tencent. In 2017, leadership changed hands when Craig H. Barratt took over the CEO role from Martin Izzard, serving until May 2020.
Intel acquired Barefoot Networks in June 2019 for an undisclosed sum to enhance its portfolio in networking and interconnect silicon technologies. Nevertheless, in January 2023, Intel declared it would discontinue production of the networking chips initially developed by Barefoot.
Barefoot Tofino
The Barefoot Tofino chip is a programmable switch silicon designed using the P4 language, supporting data transfer rates up to 12.8 Tbit/s.
Programmability
P4 refers to a programming language that allows for the customization of packet forwarding dataplanes within network devices.
Barefoot Deep Insight
Barefoot Deep Insight is a network analytics platform that provides comprehensive visibility into packet-level data. It operates on standard servers and performs real-time analysis and troubleshooting of packet flow issues at line-rate speeds.