Intel launches standalone FPGA business

Intel has launched a new standalone field programmable gate array (FPGA) company to target opportunities enabled by the AI revolution.

The new business, Altera, aims to carve out a share of what Intel believes to be a US$55 billion ($84.3 billion) or higher market opportunity.

Altera will target FPGA markets across the cloud, network and edge sectors with solutions including FPGA AI Suite and OpenVINO, which generate optimised intellectual property based on standard AI frameworks such as TensorFlow and Pytorch.

The Altera product range will also include the Agilex series of FPGAs, including the Agilex 9 which offers the industry’s fastest data converters. The company also offers the Agilex 7 F-Series and Agilex 5, and is planning to soon launch the low-power, value range Agilex 3 for low-complexity functions for cloud, communications and intelligent edge applications.

Altera’s inaugural CEO Sandra Rivera said the company’s product lines have been tailored to customer needs. “As customers deal with increasingly complex technological challenges and work to differentiate themselves from their competitors and accelerate time to value, we have an opportunity to reinvigorate the FPGA market,” she said. “We’re leading with a bold, agile and customer-obsessed approach to deliver programmable solutions and accessible AI across a broad range of applications in the comms, cloud, data centre, embedded, industrial, automotive and mil-aero market segments.”

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