Altera announced that it is becoming a company independent from Intel

Amid the swift resignation of the former Intel CEO in early December, everyone almost forgot that the plan outlined by management included giving the Altera subsidiary greater independence, finding investors for it, and then going public. Altera executives said this week that the company has revived its own headquarters, becoming even more independent.

Image Source: Intel

CEO Sandra Rivera will lead Altera from its headquarters in San Jose, California. In 2015, Intel bought Altera for $16.7 billion, after which it spent a long time trying to integrate its programmable matrix business into its organizational structure. Recently it was decided that Altera needed more independence, and due to financial problems Intel began searching for potential investors for Altera.

At the same time, the previous management of Intel was not ready to sell Altera entirely, preferring to prepare the subsidiary for a public offering of shares. Even after the spin-off, Altera will now maintain a close relationship with Intel. At least the latter will be able to produce some components for it, although in general Altera gets relative freedom in choosing contractors for the production of chips. The development of artificial intelligence systems opens up certain prospects for Altera’s business, since its programmable matrices can be used to simulate the operation of future specialized accelerators before they are implemented in silicon. In some cases, the use of so-called FPGAs pays off throughout the entire life cycle of the system.