KingDMC
9 years ago
Intel to Acquire Altera
Source: Business Wire
Enables New Classes of Products in High-Growth Data Center and Internet of Things Market Segments
Combination Harnesses the Power of Mooreβs Law to Accelerate Alteraβs Existing Businesses
Expected to be Accretive to Non-GAAP EPS and Free Cash Flow in First Year After Close
Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) and Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) today announced a definitive agreement under which Intel would acquire Altera for $54 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $16.7 billion.
The acquisition will couple Intelβs leading-edge products and manufacturing process with Alteraβs leading field-programmable gate array (FPGA) technology. The combination is expected to enable new classes of products that meet customer needs in the data center and Internet of Things (IoT) market segments. Intel plans to offer Alteraβs FPGA products with Intel Xeon® processors as highly customized, integrated products. The companies also expect to enhance Alteraβs products through design and manufacturing improvements resulting from Intelβs integrated device manufacturing model.
βIntelβs growth strategy is to expand our core assets into profitable, complementary market segments,β said Brian Krzanich, CEO of Intel. βWith this acquisition, we will harness the power of Mooreβs 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 Mooreβs Law and itβs 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.β
βGiven our close partnership, weβve seen firsthand the many benefits of our relationship with Intelβthe worldβs largest semiconductor company and a proven technology leader, and look forward to the many opportunities we will have together,β said John Daane, President, CEO and Chairman of Altera. βWe believe that as part of Intel we will be able to develop innovative FPGAs and system-on-chips for our customers in all market segments. Together, we expect to drive meaningful value for our customers, partners and employees around the world. This is an exciting transaction that provides immediate and significant value to our stockholders. We look forward to working closely with the Intel team to ensure a smooth transition and complete the transaction as quickly as possible.β
Altera will become an Intel business unit to facilitate continuity of existing and new customer sales and support. Intel plans to continue support and development for Alteraβs ARM-based and power management product lines.
The transaction is expected to be accretive to Intelβs non-GAAP EPS and free cash flow in the first year after close. Intel intends to fund the acquisition, which is expected to close within six to nine months, with a combination of cash from the balance sheet and debt.
The transaction has been unanimously approved by the Intel and Altera Boards of Directors and is subject to certain regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions, including the approval of Alteraβs stockholders.
J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Rothschild Inc. are serving as financial advisors and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP are serving as legal advisors to Intel. Goldman, Sachs & Co. is serving as the exclusive financial advisor to Altera and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Professional Corporation, is serving as legal advisor to Altera.
For more information, investors are encouraged to visit intelacquiresaltera.transactionannouncement.com, which will be used by Intel and Altera to disclose information about the transaction and comply with Regulation FD.
KingDMC
9 years ago
Intel Nears Agreement to Buy Altera for About $54 a Share -- Update
Source: Dow Jones News
By Dana Cimilluca, Dana Mattioli and Don Clark
Intel Corp.'s on-again-off-again attempt to buy Altera Corp. is on the cusp of succeeding, as the chip maker prepares to announce the roughly $17 billion acquisition Monday, a move that would allow it to boost revenue and help defend a key business.
Altera stockholders will receive about $54 a share, people familiar with the matter said, around the price the company rejected in April in an earlier round of negotiations.
There is, as always, a chance the deal could fall apart at the last minute.
The expected price is 56% higher than the one at which Altera traded before The Wall Street Journal first reported talks between the companies on March 27. Altera's shares closed Friday at $48.85.
Intel's bid continues a consolidation wave in the semiconductor industry, as companies search for new sources of revenue growth and target chip makers finding it hard to boost profitability on their own. Avago Technologies Ltd. on Thursday announced a $37 billion deal to buy Broadcom Corp., the largest technology acquisition on record.
The companies in the latest transaction are already partners. Intel's factories churn out some high-end semiconductors for Altera, which designs chips but turns to external manufacturers to make them.
Intel, the kingpin of processor chips, is expected to use the smaller company's line of programmable chips to get revenue growth at a time when a slowdown in personal-computer demand is crimping its own growth.
Altera's business is also widely seen as a way for Intel to protect its stronghold in chips for server systems, a market that generated more than half of Intel's operating profit in the quarter ended in March. Companies have lately been using chips from Altera and rival Xilinx Inc. to help speed up their servers, and some analysts believe Intel needs to have an internal source of the technology to respond to the trend.
Talks between the companies broke off in April, when Altera rejected an offer from Intel around $54 a share, people familiar with the matter have said. Altera's decision angered some of its major investors, who were skeptical that the company could reach such a price any time soon based on its own efforts. Talks then resumed in May, people familiar with the situation said.
Intel, based in Santa Clara, Calif., is known for general-purpose microprocessor chips that can be programmed to perform a near-infinite variety of computing tasks. But some kinds of operations--like converting a video from one format into another, or encrypting data so unauthorized people can't read it--can be executed more quickly using circuitry that is custom-tailored for the specific task.
Some big electronics companies still design custom chips for their products. But the cost of doing so has risen steadily over the years, so the practice only makes sense for hardware makers that have large sales volumes that will generate a return for their design investment.
Altera, along with Xilinx, popularized a middle path. They sell chips called field-programmable gate arrays, or FPGAs, that are configured by customers after they leave the factory. Each chip contains blocks of circuitry for specific kinds of processing or data-storage jobs, and programmers can select and arrange how electrical signals travel between them.
The result isn't as fast as a specialized chip designed from scratch but has long been an attractive option in certain markets---particularly in hardware such as cellular base stations and switching systems. And a newer trend--using FPGAs alongside server systems in large data centers--is making the technology particular important for Intel's future.
Intel sells more than 90% of the chips used in servers, the mainstay for jobs like delivering email and Web pages. While the company gets most of its revenue from chips for personal computers, its Xeon server chips are much more profitable. So Intel has an incentive to go to great lengths to keep server buyers happy.
Some of those companies, particularly Wall Street investment banks and big Web services, have been experimenting with non-Intel technologies to carry out computing chores faster or with lower power consumption. International Business Machines Corp. is working with a series of partners to try to position its Power chips for Web applications. Users of technology from ARM Holdings PLC, the standard in smartphones, are also trying to penetrate the data center.
Still another tack is to use FPGAs along with Intel's chips or other processors to speed up computing jobs. Microsoft Corp., for example, has been testing the use of Altera FPGAs to get answers faster with its Bing search engine.
Intel has responded to the technology changes in several ways, including customizing chips for some big customers and packaging its Xeon chips with FPGAs. But there is another approach that could pose an even bigger threat in the future, analysts say--putting a processor and an FPGA on one piece of silicon, which allows much faster communications than putting two chips next to each other.
Altera and Xilinx have recently been offering customers FPGAs that have ARM processors embedded in them. Intel, to help get comparable speed benefits and counter rivals like ARM, needs to be able to sell chips that have a similar combination of processor and FPGA technology, some analysts say.
KingDMC
9 years ago
WSJ reporting deal to be announced Monday for about $17 billion. Should equate to about $56-$58 a share, but depends on number of OS shares that could make it less.
Intel Nears Agreement to Buy Altera for About $54 a Share
Deal valuing Altera at about $17 billion to be announced Monday
By DANA CIMILLUCA, DANA MATTIOLI and DON CLARK
Updated May 31, 2015 2:57 p.m. ET
Intel Corp.βs on-again-off-again attempt to buy Altera Corp. is on the cusp of succeeding, as the chip maker prepares to announce the roughly $17 billion acquisition Monday, a move that would allow it to boost revenue and help defend a key business.
Altera stockholders will receive about $54 a share, people familiar with the matter said, around...
KingDMC
9 years ago
WSJ reporting deal to be announced Monday for about $17 billion. Should equate to about $56-$58 a share, but depends on number of OS shares that could make it less.
Intel Nears Agreement to Buy Altera for About $54 a Share
Deal valuing Altera at about $17 billion to be announced Monday
By DANA CIMILLUCA, DANA MATTIOLI and DON CLARK
Updated May 31, 2015 2:57 p.m. ET
Intel Corp.βs on-again-off-again attempt to buy Altera Corp. is on the cusp of succeeding, as the chip maker prepares to announce the roughly $17 billion acquisition Monday, a move that would allow it to boost revenue and help defend a key business.
Altera stockholders will receive about $54 a share, people familiar with the matter said, around...
KingDMC
9 years ago
Altera Speeds IEC 61508-compliant Designs with Certified 28 nm FPGAs, SoCs, and Toolflows
Source: PR Newswire (US)
SAN JOSE, Calif., May 18, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) today announced the availability of the latest version of its Industrial Functional Safety Data Package (Ver. 3), for systems designers using Altera field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The safety pack provides TUV Rheinland-certified toolflows, IP and devices including Cyclone V FPGAs, enabling faster time for market for industrial safety solutions to IEC 61508 up to Safety Integrity Level 3 (SIL3).
Altera Corporation addresses safety mandates in industrial and manufacturing settings with its new Functional Safety Data Package 3. The solution, aimed at systems designers using Altera field programmable gate arrays, provides T?V Rhineland-certified tool flows, IP and devices including Cyclone V FPGAs, enabling faster time for market for industrial safety solutions to IEC 61508 up to Safety Integrity Level 3 (SIL3).
Under industrial safety mandates, industrial equipment must be certified to ensure electrical, electronic or programmable electronic systems that carry out safety functions meet industry-standard safety guidelines. Generally, such products must fulfill requirements of the IEC 61508 standard to safety integrity level 3 (SIL 3), and meet the ISO 13849 standard to performance level category 4 (PL e Cat 4.)
In addition, as the complexity of safety designs increases, the need to provide advanced safety functions and to integrate safety functionality with the application, has led to the need for advanced certified toolflows, such as Altera Safety Design Partitioning toolflow, offered in this latest version of the Functional Safety Data Package. This partitioning toolflow gives designers the ability to separate the safe and non-safe portions of the design, allowing user updates of the non-safe portion with minimal safety re-certification effort.
"Without certified toolflows such as those Altera's safety package provides, customers are left with the challenge of certifying the tools and devices themselves, which require they use older versions of the tools and subsequently, older less-capable technology," said Roger May, system architect and Functional Safety lead in the Altera Industrial Business Unit, "With the release of our third generation of our Functional Safety Data Package, customers can continue to confidently use Altera's latest devices and toolflows to address the challenges they are seeing today in designing safety systems."
For more information on the Altera industrial automation and functional safety solutions, please visit https://www.altera.com/solutions/industry/industrial/applications/automation/functional-safety.html.
Altera-based Board from NewTec Now Available
Altera today, also announced the availability the Cyclone V-based SafeFlex Functional Safety board from partner NewTec GmbH, which was demonstrated at the SPS IC Drives event in Nuremberg, in November, 2014 and satisfies the requirement for IEC 61508 to SIL 3in addition to ISO 13849 to PL e Cat 4. The board and associated documentation and reference design will allow systems designers who are new to safety to understand best industry practices when implementing safety systems up to SIL3 & PL e Cat 4 on Altera FPGA's,. allowing Altera customers to accelerate their designs. For more information on the SafeFlex board visit www.newtec.de/web/en/spectrum/SafetySolutions/SafeFlex/SafeFlex.php
Altera Cyclone FPGAs
Altera's Cyclone® V FPGAs provide the industry's lowest system cost and power, along with performance levels that make the device family ideal for differentiating your high-volume applications. With up to 40 percent lower total power compared with the previous generation, they offer efficient logic integration capabilities, integrated transceiver variants enabling great flexibility for systems designers.