Intel Acquires Altera For $16.7 Billion

Its the buzz of the semiconductor space, Intel Corp. has finally acquired FPGA design company Altera Corp. in an all-cash transaction valued at $16.7 billion. The deal would help Intel bolster its position in the highly lucrative data center market, as well as fuel its plans to supply chips in the IoTs space. 

News of the deal comes after months of speculations and rumored talks between the two semiconductor companies, but on April the merger talks appeared to be off the table when Altera rejected Intel's original bid, which rumored to be in the $50 per share range. Under the deal, Intel will pay $54 a share in cash for the San Jose, CA-based Altera, which is known for its programmable logic devices and related technology. 

The deal will couple Intel's cutting-edge products and manufacturing process with Altera's industry-leading field-programmable gate array (FPGA) technology. Intel said, Altera's technology will help Intel create a new class of products giving its customers a significant improvement in performance, lower costs and more flexibility. Altera's programmable chips will allow Intel to increase the computational capability of its Xeon server chips. In addition, Intel also expect to enhance Altera's product lines through its leading-edge design and manufacturing improvements resulting from Intel's cutting-edge manufacturing process.

Brian Krzanich, CEO Intel, said in a statement: “Intel’s growth strategy is to expand our core assets into profitable, complementary market segments,” and added that: “With this acquisition, we will harness the power of Moore’s Law to make the next generation of solutions not just better, but able to do more. Whether to enable new growth in the network, large cloud data centers or IoT segments, our customers expect better performance at lower costs. This is the promise of Moore’s Law and it’s the innovation enabled by Intel and Altera joining forces. We look forward to working with the talented team at Altera to deliver this value to our customers and stockholders.”  

Consolidation in the semiconductor space continues to heat up. In March, NXP Semiconductors NV has agreed to buy Freescale Semiconductors Ltd. For $12 billion.  And just last week, Avago Technologies announced a $37 billion deal to buy Broadcom Corp., the largest acquisition ever in the semiconductor space. 

Other recent Intel acquisition include Axxia'a network chip business for $650 million (August 2014) and networking gear company Lantiq (February 2015).

J.P. Morgan securities LLC and Rothschild Inc. is Intel's financial advisors, and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP are serving as legal advisors. Goldman, Sachs & Co. is Altera's exclusive financial advisor while Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is serving as legal advisor.

About Altera
Altera is a US-based manufacturer of programmable logic devices (PLDs), reconfigurable complex digital circuits. The company's programmable solutions enable designers of electronic systems to rapidly and cost effectively innovate, differentiate in their market. It offers FPGA, SoC, CPLD and complimentary technologies, such as power solutions to provide high-value solutions to customer worldwide. The company's main products are the Stratix, Arria and Cyclone series FPGA, the MAX series CPLDs, Quartus II design software, and Enpirion PowerSoc DC-DC power solutions. Altera introduced the industry's first 40-nm programmable logic devices- the Stratix IV FPGAs and HardCopy IV ASICs. 

About Intel
Intel is a US-based technology company and a world leader in computing innovation. The company is one of the world's largest and highest valued semiconductor chip makers, based on revenue. 

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