Marvell has been assembling a full 5G- and cloud-oriented portfolio for several years now, through development and acquisition, and offers solutions ranging from high end cloud processors capable of supporting virtualized RANs, to RAN acceleration platforms and small cell processors. That has placed it in the race with Intel, especially in the context of vRAN and Open RAN infrastructure, but its latest acquisition, of switch-chip vendor Innovium, also brings Broadcom into its sights. Broadcom does not play directly in the RAN processor field but it is hugely powerful in conventional and white box switching platforms. So the $1.1bn in stock that Marvell has paid for Innovium will fill a gap in its growing line-up and help it compete more effectively…