For its final move in 2015, Intel bought out Altera in an all-cash purchase of approximately $16.7 billion. Obviously, Altera will no longer keep its original name; instead, it will be part of Intel’s business group under the new brand called the Programmable Solutions Group (PSG), with Dan McNamara, Altera’s former vice president and general manager for its embedded and systems division, at the helm.
Altera’s main focus of production was field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA), and Intel wants the PSG to continue working in that field. However, it will also collaborate with Intel’s Data Center and Internet of Things groups to create new products. As for those who still utilize Altera’s products, Intel assured customers that it will support current and future devices created by the PSG, such as its lineup of FPGAs and ARM-based SoCs.
Prior to the purchase of Altera, the two companies collaborated in the past. In 2013, Intel announced that its 14nm tri-gate transistor technology (which was used for military devices, wireline communications and cloud networking) would include Altera’s FPGAs. Later that same year, Altera’s Stratix 10 SoC devices would incorporate a quad-core, 64-bit ARM Cortex A53 processor. The SoC itself was manufactured on Intel’s 14nm tri-gate technology.
