Intel Aquires Altera For $16.7 Billion

[Sabre]

Geeky Gadgets

Intel has this week announced the acquisition of Altera Corporation otherwise know as Altera a leading provider of field-programmable gate array (FPGA) technology.

the latest acquisition is the companies largest to date and will help expand its enterprise activities by providing customers with faster more complex silicon technology.

Customers including Microsoft, Facebook and Google to name a few use Intel’s Xeon processors for computational work within their servers. Intel explained in their press release today :

The acquisition complements Intel’s leading-edge product portfolio and enables new classes of products in the high-growth data center and Internet of Things (IoT) market segments.

Altera will operate as a new Intel business unit called the Programmable Solutions Group (PSG), led by Altera veteran Dan McNamara. Intel is committed to a smooth transition for Altera customers and will continue the support and future product development of Altera’s many products, including FPGA, ARM-based SoC and power products.

In addition to strengthening the existing FPGA business, PSG will work closely with Intel’s Data Center Group and IoT Group to deliver the next generation of highly customized, integrated products and solutions.

Brian Krzanich, Intel CEO explains :

Altera is now part of Intel, and together we will make the next generation of semiconductors not only better but able to do more,” said . “We will apply Moore’s Law to grow today’s FPGA business, and we’ll invent new products that make amazing experiences of the future possible – experiences like autonomous driving and machine learning.

They are already integrating FPGA elements in to x86/x64 architectures, so this should be amazing.

[ElZorro]

I'm not holding my breath... I don't think either will get worse, but I'm not expecting any magic to happen. FPGAs already have ARM cores, FPGAs are already getting put in other processors.

[Sabre]

We shall see