EZchip was co-founded in 1999 by Eli Fruchter, a Technion graduate in the field of electrical engineering and veteran of the Israel Defense Forces' 8200 intelligence unit,[2][3] and Alex Tal who served as Ezchip's first CTO and V.P R&D.

Until 2008, EZchip operated as a subsidiary of LANOptics, then a developer of Ethernet switching chips and security software.

[4][5] Over the twelve-month period leading up to February 2012, shares of EZchip rose 40% on the Nasdaq index as demand for its processors grew and speculation increased that the company would get bought out.

[6] In July 2014, EZchip acquired Tilera, a company that develops high-performance multi-core processors, intelligent network interface cards and white-box appliances for data-center networking equipment, $130 million in cash.

[7] In January 2016, a shareholder vote passed that approved the merger of Mellanox Technologies and EZchip.