Altera Corporation was a manufacturer of
programmable logic device
A programmable logic device (PLD) is an electronic component used to build reconfigurable digital circuits. Unlike digital logic constructed using discrete logic gates with fixed functions, a PLD has an undefined function at the time of manuf ...
s (PLDs) headquartered in
San Jose, California
San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popul ...
. It was founded in 1983 and acquired by
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
in 2015.
The main product lines from Altera were the flagship
Stratix
Stratix is a brand of FPGA products developed by Intel, Programmable Solutions Group (former Altera). Other current FPGA product lines include e.g. Agilex, Arria and Cyclone families.
Stratix FPGAs are typically programmed in hardware description ...
series, mid-range Arria series, and lower-cost Cyclone series
system on a chip
A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memory ...
field-programmable gate arrays
A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturinghence the term '' field-programmable''. The FPGA configuration is generally specified using a hardware de ...
(FPGAs); the MAX series
complex programmable logic device and non-volatile FPGAs;
Quartus design software; and Enpirion PowerSoC
DC-DC
A DC-to-DC converter is an electronic circuit or electromechanical device that converts a source of direct current (DC) from one voltage level to another. It is a type of electric power converter. Power levels range from very low (small batteries) ...
power solutions.
The company was founded in 1983 by semiconductor veterans Rodney Smith, Robert Hartmann, James Sansbury, and Paul Newhagen with $500,000 in
seed money
Seed money, sometimes known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' ...
. The name of the company was a play on "alterable", the type of chips the company created. In 1984, the company formed a long-running design partnership with
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
, and 1988, became a
public company
A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (l ...
via an
initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
. In 1994, Altera acquired the PLD business of Intel for $50 million.
On December 28, 2015, the company was acquired by
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
.
Products
FPGAs
![Embedded World 2016, Altera Cyclone-V SE (02)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Embedded_World_2016%2C_Altera_Cyclone-V_SE_%2802%29.jpg)
The
Stratix
Stratix is a brand of FPGA products developed by Intel, Programmable Solutions Group (former Altera). Other current FPGA product lines include e.g. Agilex, Arria and Cyclone families.
Stratix FPGAs are typically programmed in hardware description ...
series FPGAs were the company's largest, highest bandwidth devices, with up to 1.1 million logic elements, integrated transceivers at up to 28 Gbit/s, up to 1.6 Tbit/s of serial switching capability, up to 1,840 GMACs of signal-processing performance, and up to 7 x72 DDR3 memory interfaces at 800 MHz.
In September 2000, the company acquired Northwest Logic to expand its design services for delivery of complete system-on-chip solutions.
In May 2013, Altera made available SDK for OpenCL, enabling software programmers to access the high-performance capabilities of programmable logic devices.
System on a chip FPGAs
Beginning in December 2012, the company produced
system on a chip
A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memory ...
FPGA devices using a fully depleted silicon on insulator (FDSOI) chip manufacturing process. These devices integrated FPGAs with full hard processor systems based around
ARM architecture
ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configured ...
onto a single device.
PowerSoC
In May 2013, Altera acquired embedded power chipmaker Enpirion for approximately $140 million in cash, providing Altera with power
system on a chip
A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memory ...
DC-DC
A DC-to-DC converter is an electronic circuit or electromechanical device that converts a source of direct current (DC) from one voltage level to another. It is a type of electric power converter. Power levels range from very low (small batteries) ...
converters that enabled greater power densities and lower noise performance compared with their discrete equivalent. Unlike converters made from discrete components, Enpirion
DC-DC
A DC-to-DC converter is an electronic circuit or electromechanical device that converts a source of direct current (DC) from one voltage level to another. It is a type of electric power converter. Power levels range from very low (small batteries) ...
converters were simulated, characterized, validated and production qualified at delivery.
Application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs)
Altera offered a publicly available ASIC design flow based on HardCopy ASICs, which transitioned an FPGA design, once finalized, to a form which is not alterable. This design flow reduced design security risks as well as costs for higher volume production. Design engineers could prototype their designs in Stratix series FPGAs, and then migrate these designs to HardCopy ASICs when they were ready for volume production.
The unique design flow made hardware/software co-design and co-verification possible. The flow was benchmarked to deliver systems to market 9 to 12 months faster, on average, than with standard-cell solutions. Design engineers were able to employ a single
RTL, set of intellectual property (IP) cores, and Quartus II design software for both FPGA and ASIC implementations. Altera's HardCopy Design Center managed test insertion.
In 2007, Altera’s Nios II FPGA soft processor core became available for standard cell ASIC designs.
Semiconductor intellectual property cores
Altera and its partners offered an array of
semiconductor intellectual property core
In electronic design, a semiconductor intellectual property core (SIP core), IP core, or IP block is a reusable unit of logic, cell, or integrated circuit layout design that is the intellectual property of one party. IP cores can be licensed to ...
s that served as building blocks that design engineers can drop into their system designs to perform specific functions. IP cores eliminate some of the time-consuming tasks of creating every block in a design from scratch. In 2000, Altera acquired Designpro, a provider of IP cores.
Altera offered soft processor cores on the
Nios II
Nios II is a 32-bit embedded processor architecture designed specifically for the Altera family of field-programmable gate array (FPGA) integrated circuits. Nios II incorporates many enhancements over the original Nios architecture, making it mo ...
embedded processor, the Freescale
ColdFire
The NXP ColdFire is a microprocessor that derives from the Motorola 68000 family architecture, manufactured for embedded systems development by NXP Semiconductors. It was formerly manufactured by Freescale Semiconductor (formerly the semiconductor ...
v1 core (free for Cyclone III FPGA), and the
ARM Cortex-M1 processor as well as a hard IP processor core on the
ARM Cortex-A9
The ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore is a 32-bit multi-core processor that provides up to 4 cache-coherent cores, each implementing the ARM v7 architecture instruction set. It was introduced in 2007.
Features
Key features of the Cortex-A9 core are:
* ...
processor.
Design software
All of Altera's devices were supported by a common design environment, Quartus II design software. Quartus II software was available in a subscription-based edition and a free Web-based edition. It included tools to foster productivity.
Technology
40-nm technology
In May 2008, Altera introduced the first 40-nm programmable logic devices: the Stratix IV FPGAs and HardCopy IV ASICs. Both devices were available with integrated
transceiver
In radio communication, a transceiver is an electronic device which is a combination of a radio ''trans''mitter and a re''ceiver'', hence the name. It can both transmit and receive radio waves using an antenna, for communication purposes. The ...
options.
In February 2009, the company introduced Stratix IV GT FPGAs, which had 11.3 Gbit/s transceivers for 40G/100G applications, and Arria II GX FPGAs, which had 3.75 Gbit/s transceivers for power- and cost-sensitive applications.
Altera's devices were manufactured using techniques such as 193-nm
immersion lithography
Immersion lithography is a photolithography resolution enhancement technique for manufacturing integrated circuits (ICs) that replaces the usual air gap between the final lens and the wafer surface with a liquid medium that has a refractive inde ...
and technologies such as extreme low-k dielectrics and
strained silicon
Strained silicon is a layer of silicon in which the silicon atoms are stretched beyond their normal interatomic distance. This can be accomplished by putting the layer of silicon over a substrate of silicon–germanium (). As the atoms in the sili ...
.
28-nm technology
In April 2010, Altera introduced the FPGA industry's second 28-nm device, the Stratix V FPGA (to Xilinx's Kintex-7 FPGA), available with transceivers at speeds up to 28 Gbit/s. This device family has more than 1 million logic elements, up to 53 Mb of embedded memory, up to 7 x72 DDR3 DIMMs at 800 MHz, 1.6 Gbit/s LVDS performance, and up to 3,680 variable-precision DSP blocks.
In August 2011, Altera began shipping 28-nm Stratix V GT devices featuring 28-gigabits-per-second transceivers.
Embedded HardCopy blocked harden standard or logic-intensive applications, increasing integration and delivering twice the density without a cost or power penalty. Altera developed a user-friendly method for partial reconfiguration, so core functionality can be changed easily and on the fly. There is a path to HardCopy V ASICs, when designs are ready for volume production. Altera’s 28 nm FPGAs aimed to reduce power requirements to 200 mW per channel.
[ In 2004, the company began collaborating with ]Synopsys
Synopsys is an American electronic design automation (EDA) company that focuses on silicon design and verification, silicon intellectual property and software security and quality. Products include tools for logic synthesis and physical design ...
on HardCopy Structured ASICs.
In December 2012, the company announced the shipment of its first 28 nm Cyclone V SoC devices, which had a dual-core ARM architecture
ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configured ...
Cortex-A9 processor system with FPGA logic on a single chip. These SoCs were targeted for wireless communications, industrial, video surveillance, automotive and medical equipment markets. With these SoCs devices, users were able to create custom field-programmable SoC variants for power, board space, performance and cost optimization.
14-nm technology
In February 2013, Altera announced an agreement with Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
to use Intel’s foundry
A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...
services to produce its 14-nm node for the future manufacturing of its FPGAs, based on Intel’s 14 nm tri-gate transistor technology, in place of Altera’s ongoing agreement with TSMC
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC; also called Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational corporation, multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is the world's most valuable semicon ...
.
In October 2016, nearly one year after Intel's integration with Altera, STRATIX 10 was announced, which is based on Intel's 14 nm Tri-Gate process.
Restatement of financial results
On June 21, 2006, after an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...
, the company restated its financial results from 1996 to 2005 to correct accounting errors related to options backdating
In finance, options backdating is the practice of altering the date a stock option was granted, to a usually earlier (but sometimes later) date at which the underlying stock price was lower. This is a way of repricing options to make them more v ...
. The chief financial officer
The chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization that is assigned the primary responsibility for managing the company's finances, including financial planning, management of financial risks, record-keeping, and financ ...
of the company resigned. Altera filed a petition to overturn related regulations but was, under Intel, denied in 2020.
Acquisition by Intel
In December 2015, Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
acquired Altera for $16.7 billion in cash. The Altera brand was phased-out quickly after, and all Altera products are now branded as Intel.
See also
* Xilinx
Xilinx, Inc. ( ) was an American technology and semiconductor company that primarily supplied programmable logic devices. The company was known for inventing the first commercially viable field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and creating the fi ...
* AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...
References
{{Authority control
1983 establishments in California
1980s initial public offerings
2015 mergers and acquisitions
Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq
Defunct semiconductor companies of the United States
Electronics companies disestablished in 2015
Electronics companies established in 1983
Intel acquisitions