Intels Altera unit eyes audacious goal to dominate programmable chips
Summary
Nine months ago, Intel made Altera -- its unit that produces programmable chips -- a standalone business -- with the intention of spinning it public in 2026. Also: Your next laptop may be powered by this Intel AI chip, and the benefits are mind-blowing "Our goal is to be the number one FPGA solutions provider in the world," said Altera CEO Sandra Rivera in a press briefing. That enables the Agilex 3, she explained, "to deliver all of those additional capabilities that youd need in autonomous vehicles and industrial IoT in this very powerful, small device." Altera has also tripled the number of system boards and reference kits used by partners and resellers of the Agilex chips, noted Rivera. The Quartex software also allows designers to implement Alteras CPU-alternative, the "Nios V soft-core processor," which, unlike a hard-wired ARM CPU core, can "be instantiated in the FPGA fabric."