On March 1, 2024, Intel announced the establishment of a new independently operated FPGA company-Altera. Altera, which operates independently, plans to conduct a public offering (IPO) within the next 2-3 years. Previously, Sandra Rivera, general manager of Intel's Data Center and Artificial Intelligence (DCAI) Division, served as CEO of the independently operated Altera company.
Intel acquired Altera for US$16.7 billion in June 2015. Altera was the world's second largest FPGA company when it was acquired. Nine years later, Intel decided to let the FPGA business operate independently and once again used Altera as the company name, which seemed to rebirth Altera.
Regarding Altera's independent operation, Arrow CEO Sean Kerins said, "Altera has a good reputation for FPGA innovation, is well-known in the market, and everyone is familiar with it. And considering that Intel will continue to support Altera in various ways, this is simply the best of both worlds for our mutual customers."
Altera, which operates independently, plays an important role in the entire FPGA industry and will bring new changes.
After being acquired by Intel, Altera FPGA focused on high-performance data and cloud computing, which gave mid- and low-end FPGA companies more room for survival. After announcing independent operations, Altera set its sights on the embedded and low-cost markets. The changes that may bring to the mid- and low-end FPGA markets are worthy of attention.
"We estimate that the cumulative potential market for FPGAs will exceed US$55 billion in the next five years." Sandra is also very clear about Altera's development plan, "During this transition period, our priority is maintaining business continuity with our customers and partners."
To maintain the continuity of cooperation with customers, product continuity and a product portfolio covering high, middle and low-end are also very important. Altera has launched three series of products, and one series of products is about to be launched, including:
Agilex9 is now in mass production.It provides industry-leading data converters for applications requiring high-bandwidth mixed-signal FPGAs.
The Agilex 7F Series and I Series are now in production.This series of products can provide twice the performance per watt ratio and is designed for high-bandwidth computing applications such as data centers and networks.
Agilex5 is now widely available.As the industry's first FPGA with embedded AI modules, it can provide leading performance for embedded edge applications, with a performance improvement of up to 1.6 times per watt.
Agilex3 is coming soon.It will provide a leading, low-power FPGA family for low-complexity functions in cloud computing, communications and intelligent edge applications.
Agilex5, as an FPGA embedded with AI modules, is not only a product that continues cooperation with customers, but also a leading product that opens up the AI market.
“We kept customer feedback in mind when building Agilex5There is a lack of low-power mid-range FPGAs in the FPGA industry."Shannon Poulin, chief operating officer of Altera, shared, "We have tried our best to reduce power consumption, optimized the process, and adopted additional power gating methods in the logic structure and IP, striving to provide an excellent energy-saving mid-range FPGA. "
The more devices running Agilex5 and the higher the operating frequency, the more competitive the series becomes in the mid-range FPGA market.
While seizing customers' pain points to create differentiation, Agilex5 is also being promoted to customers at a faster speed. The first batch of development boards based on Agilex5 are now available for order.
"The Agilex5 early access plan is a rare large-scale plan in the history of PSG and Altera.Hundreds of customers already have access to our software and hardware. "We will be fully open to all customers in about a month," Shannon said. "
In fact, Agilex5’s differentiated competition is not only reflected in solving customers’ pain points for mid-range FPGAs, but also in the value of AI.
"AI is becoming more common, which will continue to drive the adoption of FPGAs, mainly in AI inference and embedded applications that generate large amounts of data." Sandra said, "More than 75% of customers said they plan to deploy FPGAs in their AI solutions within the next 3-5 years."
In other words, the success of Agilex5 will mean Altera's advantage in the AI era.
Agilex3 may be a product that changes the competitive landscape of the market.Because Altera has refocused its attention on the embedded market, which has the largest demand, Altera has not paid attention to this market for a long time. Now the launch of brand-new products may disturb the structure of this market.
In any case, Altera's independent operation, just like Intel's acquisition of Altera, will bring new changes to the FPGA market.