Nallatech

Nallatech, established in 1993 by Allan Cantle, specializes in developing high-performance computing solutions centered around Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology. The company's name, 'Nallatech', is derived from the founder's first name spelled backward. Allan Cantle, who holds a Bachelor's in Electrical & Electronics Engineering and a Master's in Corporate Leadership, founded the company as a part-time venture while working on a water distribution control system. His extensive experience in designing systems for missile simulations at MBDA Missile Systems informed his vision for using FPGAs as co-processors for computationally intensive tasks. The firm transitioned to a full-time consultancy in 1995 after Cantle relocated to Scotland, where he partnered with Dr. Malachy Devlin, who brought a complementary software-centric background to Cantle's hardware expertise.

The company provides hardware, software, and design services, focusing on FPGA-accelerated computing. Its primary markets include defense, high-performance computing, network processing, and real-time embedded systems. Nallatech's business model revolves around supplying commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) FPGA products that offer higher performance per watt compared to traditional CPU and GPU platforms. These products are designed to be modular, allowing clients to customize systems with the specific number of FPGAs, memory, and expansion cards required for their applications, which range from genomic processing and military radar to high-frequency trading. Revenue is generated through the sale of these hardware solutions and associated design and integration services.

Nallatech's product line consists of FPGA accelerator cards and platforms, such as the PCIe-180, 385A, and 510T, which are compatible with standard server architectures from Dell, HP, and IBM. These cards integrate FPGAs from major vendors like Altera (now Intel) and Xilinx, providing high-throughput connections for data processing and system monitoring. For example, the PCIe-180 is a low-profile card designed for real-time deep packet inspection of 10Gb Ethernet traffic. The 385A accelerator card, featuring an Altera Arria 10 FPGA, is engineered for server deployment to accelerate applications like machine learning and data analytics. In 2008, Nallatech was acquired by Interconnect Systems, Inc. (ISI), which was subsequently purchased by Molex in 2016. Following the acquisition, the Nallatech brand and its product lines were merged with another Molex-owned company, BittWare, in 2018 to consolidate their position in the FPGA acceleration market.

Keywords: FPGA, accelerated computing, high-performance computing, network processing, embedded systems, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS), accelerator cards, Allan Cantle, Molex, BittWare, data center acceleration, FPGA design services, real-time processing, defense electronics, financial technology, low-latency trading, data analytics, PCIe cards, Xilinx, Altera