Hifn
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Semiconductor |
| Predecessor | Stac Electronics |
| Founded | 1996 in Carlsbad, California, United States |
| Fate | Acquired by Exar Corporation in 2009 |
| Headquarters | Los Gatos, California , United States |
Area served | North America, Europe, Asia |
| Products | Security processors |
Hifn (branded as Hi/fn) was a semiconductor company founded in 1996 in Carlsbad, California, emerging as a spin-off from Stac Electronics. The firm later relocated its headquarters to Los Gatos, California, and maintained offices throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, focusing on the development of security processors. In 2009, Exar Corporation acquired the company.
1996–2008: Establishment and development
Formed in 1996 as an offshoot of Stac, Inc., Hifn went public in December 1998, listing on NASDAQ with the ticker symbol HIFN.
In 1998, the company launched the first processor that combined encryption and compression capabilities. The following year, it introduced the fastest security processor designed for virtual private networks (VPNs).
By 2000, Hifn unveiled its "Intelligent Packet Processor," a security co-processor that converted IP packets into IPSec packets in a single pass, significantly lowering the processing burden on host CPUs.
The year 2001 saw the release of a security processor supporting the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm.
In 2004, Hifn created an IPsec protocol processor that managed IPsec and Internet Key Exchange tasks independently of the CPU. This innovation was extended to storage area network (SAN) environments, including iSCSI implementations.
That same year, the company completed a secondary offering of its stock.
Hifn also concentrated on secure Voice over IP (VoIP) and WiMax sectors by designing security processors equipped with "application-aware" flow classification and search engine functionalities.
Earlier in 2004, Hifn acquired IBM’s Network Processor assets along with intellectual property licenses for PowerNP technology. This acquisition positioned Hifn as the exclusive supplier of PowerNP (known internally at IBM as Rainier) to select telecommunications and data communications equipment manufacturers.
Acquisition by Exar
On April 3, 2009, semiconductor firm Exar Corporation finalized its purchase of Hifn through a transaction involving stock issuance and roughly $67 million in cash.
Products
Hifn held patents related to the Lempel–Ziv–Stac and Microsoft Point-to-Point Compression algorithms, which are fundamental technologies in data compression.