this article needs additional citations for verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . december 2012 learn how and when to remove this template message altera corporation altera headquarters in san jose california . type subsidiary of intel industry integrated circuits founded 1983 headquarters san jose california united states key people dan mcnamara founder and ceo products fpgas cplds embedded processors asics revenue us 1.783 billion 2013 operating income us 584.1 million 2013 net income us 556.8 million 2013 total assets us 4.658 billion 2013 total equity us 3.333 billion 2013 number of employees 2 884 december 2011 parent intel website www.altera.com altera corporation was an american manufacturer of programmable logic devices plds reconfigurable complex digital circuits . 1 the company released its first pld in 1984 . 2 altera s main products are the stratix arria and cyclone series fpgas 1 the max series cplds 1 quartus ii design software 3 4 and enpirion powersoc dc dc power solutions . altera and intel announced on june 1 2015 that they have agreed that intel would acquire altera in an all cash transaction valued at approximately 16.7 billion . 5 as of december 28 2015 the acquisition had been completed . 6 7 contents 1 products 1.1 fpgas 1.2 soc fpgas 1.3 powersoc 1.4 asics 1.5 ip cores 1.6 design software 2 technology 2.1 40 nm technology 2.2 28 nm technology 2.3 14 nm technology 3 competition 4 restatement 5 references 6 external links products edit fpgas edit the stratix series fpgas are 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 . 8 cyclone series fpgas and soc fpgas are the company s lowest cost lowest power fpgas with variants offering integrated transceivers up to 5 gbit s. in between these two device families are arria series fpgas which provide a balance of performance power and cost for mid range applications such as remote radio heads video conferencing equipment and wireline access equipment . arria fpgas have integrated transceivers up to 10 gbit s. soc fpgas edit since december 2012 the company has been shipping soc fpga devices . 9 according to altera fully depleted silicon on insulator fdsoi chip manufacturing process is beneficial for fpgas . 10 these devices integrate fpgas with full hard processor systems based around arm processors onto a single device . powersoc edit in may 2013 altera acquired embedded power chipmaker enpirion for 134m in cash 141m including the assumption of debt . since that time enpirion has been incorporated into altera by becoming its own product offering within the altera portfolio of products . the enpirion products are power system on a chip dc dc converters that enable greater power densities and lower noise performance compared with their discrete equivalent . citation needed unlike converters made from discrete components enpirion dc dc converters are simulated characterized validated and production qualified at delivery . 11 asics edit previously 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 makes hardware software co design and co verification possible . the flow has been benchmarked to deliver systems to market 9 to 12 months faster on average than with standard cell solutions . design engineers can 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 manages test insertion . 12 ip cores edit altera and its partners offer an array of intellectual property ip cores that serve 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 . altera offers an embedded portfolio with a broad selection of soft processor cores nios ii embedded processor freescale coldfire v1 core free for cyclone iii fpga . arm cortex m1 processor and one hard ip processor core arm cortex a9 processor design software edit main article altera quartus all of altera s devices are supported by a common design environment quartus ii design software . quartus ii software is available in a subscription based edition and a free web based edition . it includes a number of tools to foster productivity . technology edit 40 nm technology edit in may 2008 altera introduced the industry s first 40 nm programmable logic devices the stratix iv fpgas and hardcopy iv asics . 13 both devices are available with integrated transceiver options . since then the company has also introduced stratix iv gt fpgas which have 11.3 gbit s transceivers for 40g 100g applications 14 and arria ii gx fpgas which have 3.75 gbit s transceivers for power and cost sensitive applications . semiconductors manufactured on a 40 nm process node address many of the industry s key challenges including power consumption device performance and cost . altera s devices are manufactured using techniques such as 193 nm immersion lithography and technologies such as extreme low k dielectrics and strained silicon . these techniques and technologies bring enhancements to device performance and power efficiency . 28 nm technology edit 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 . 15 the devices also feature some unique features . embedded hardcopy blocks harden standard or logic intensive applications increasing integration and delivering twice the density without a cost or power penalty . altera has developed a user friendly method for partial reconfiguration so core functionality can be changed easily and on the fly . and there is a path to hardcopy v asics when designs are ready for volume production . also altera s 28 nm fpgas aim to reduce power requirements to 200 mw per channel . 15 in december 2012 the company announced the shipment of its first 28 nm cyclone v soc devices which have a dual core arm cortex a9 processor system with fpga logic on a single chip . 16 17 the new socs are targeted for wireless communications industrial video surveillance automotive and medical equipment markets . 16 17 with these socs devices users are able to create custom field programmable soc variants for power board space performance and cost optimization . 16 17 14 nm technology edit in february 2013 altera announced an agreement with intel to use intel s foundry 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 taiwan semiconductor manufacturing corporation tsmc . 18 competition edit altera s largest competitor is fpga founder and market share leader xilinx . 19 20 the next closest competitors are lattice semiconductor and actel now microsemi each representing less than 10 percent of the market . 19 fpga startup company achronix is also a competitor but does not have any significant market share . in broader terms altera competes with asic structured asic and zero mask charge asic companies like easic . specifically in asic baysand has introduced metal configurable fpga mcfpga products to fill the needs due to discontinued hardcopy from altera . restatement edit on june 21 2006 altera corp. restated its 1996 2005 financial results to correct accounting errors related to stock based compensation expense . altera s cfo resigned after an sec investigation revealed the decade of misstated earning reports resulted from the company s alleged culture of backdating stock options . 21 references edit a b c zacks equity research nasdaq . altera shipping 28 nm fpgas . april 13 2012 . retrieved may 8 2012 . key companies shake up this year s top employers . electronic design . clive maxfield altera s quartus ii design software features qsys system integration tool eetimes may 9 2011 . retrieved june 6 2012 . clive maxfield latest and greatest quartus ii design software from altera eetimes november 7 2011 . retrieved june 6 2012 . intel to buy altera for 16.7 b as chipmakers consolidate . cnet . june 1 2015 . retrieved june 1 2015 . clark don december 28 2015 . intel completes acquisition of altera . the wall street journal . retrieved december 28 2015 . subscription required burt jeffrey december 28 2015 . intel completes 16.7 billion altera deal . eweek . retrieved december 29 2015 . graham pitcher altera set to bring big performance boosts to fpga users new electronics june 10 2013 . retrieved june 25 2013 . clive maxfield altera s shipping its first soc fpgas ee times december 12 2012 . retrieved january 9 2013 . peter clarke altera eyes fdsoi process for fpgas ee times december 15 2012 . retrieved january 9 2013 . altera to buy enpirion for on chip power conversion . ee times . may 14 2013 . retrieved august 29 2014 . altera product catalog january 2009 mark lapedus analyst comments on altera s 40 nm fpgas eetimes may 19 2008 . retrieved january 14 2013 . introducing stratix iv gt fpgas the only fpgas with integrated 11.3 gbps transceivers . april 21 2015 . retrieved june 2 2015 . a b altera ships stratix v gt fpgas eetimes august 24 2011 . retrieved november 18 2011 . a b c toni mcconnel embedded . altera ships its first cyclone v soc devices . december 12 2012 . retrieved january 3 2013 . a b c altera arm roll out fpga adaptive embedded software toolkit eet asia december 21 2012 . retrieved january 3 2013 . mark lapedus intel altera deal to shake up foundry landscape chip design magazine february 26 2013 . retrieved june 3 2013 . a b john edwards no room for second place edn june 1 2006 . retrieved january 15 2009 . jim turley the future belongs to programmers ee journal january 2 2012 . retrieved january 14 2013 . altera to restate financial results . external links edit altera official website altera support cornell ece576 uses altera fpgas altera profile at wikinvest 1 companies portal v t e programmable logic concepts asic soc fpga logic block cpld epld pla pal gal reconfigurable computing xputer soft microprocessor circuit underutilization languages verilog a ams vhdl ams vital systemverilog dpi systemc ahdl handel c psl upf palasm abel cupl openvera c to hdl flow to hdl myhdl jhdl ella companies accellera actel achronix amd aldec altera atmel cadence cypress duolog forte intel lattice national mentor graphics microsemi signetics synopsys magma virage logic texas instruments tabula xilinx products hardware ice stratix virtex software altera quartus xilinx ise xilinx vivado modelsim vtr simulators ip proprietary arc leon latticemico8 microblaze picoblaze nios nios ii open source latticemico32 opencores openrisc 1200 risc v jop v t e companies of the nasdaq 100 index 21st century fox activision blizzard adobe systems akamai