Full Description

Altera Corporation (Altera) is a supplier of programmable semiconductors and related products. Altera designs, manufactures, and markets programmable logic devices (PLDs), hardcopy application- specific integrated circuits (ASICs), pre-defined design building blocks, known as intellectual property (IP) cores, and associated development tools. PLDs, which consist of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs), are standard semiconductor integrated circuits, or chips, that its customers program to perform desired logic functions in their electronic systems. Its HardCopy enables its customer to transition from high-density FPGAs to non-programmable implementations for volume production. IP cores can be licensed by customers to add standard functions to their PLD designs.

Customers develop, compile, and verify their designs, and then program their designs into the Company’s PLDs using its development software, which operates on personal computers and engineering workstations. The Company is a supplier of complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) PLDs. Its range of PLDs offer features, as well as differing densities and performance specifications, and serve a range of customers within the communications, computer and storage, consumer, and industrial market segments.

Devices

The Company’s devices fall into four categories: FPGAs, CPLDs, HardCopy ASICs and configuration devices that store the programming code for its FPGAs. During the year ended December 31, 2008, FPGAs, CPLDs and other products accounted for 74%, 18% and 8%, respectively, of the Company’s total sale.

The Company’s Stratix product families are built using advanced CMOS process technology, and address a range of applications in the communications, computing and storage, consumer, and industrial markets. Stratix FPGAs provide logic density and performance, while offering high-speed and flexible embedded system functionality, such as memory and digital signal processing (DSP) blocks. Additionally, its Stratix IV GX FPGAs offer advanced transceiver capabilities for applications that require reliable, multi-gigabit data transfer rates. The Company’s Stratix IV series FPGAs are built using advanced 40-nanometer process technology.

The Company’s Cyclone product families are built using advanced CMOS process technology and bring programmable flexibility to applications across an array of communications, computing and storage, consumer, and industrial markets. Architectural improvements allow Cyclone FPGAs to combine a structure with device resources, making them ideal for high-volume applications across all its markets in areas, such as digital set-top boxes, digital versatile disc (DVD) player/recorder systems, automotive telematics, flat-panel televisions, military applications and wireless communications equipment.

The Arria product family is built using advanced CMOS process technology and enables a transceiver-based design for applications requiring data transfer protocols. The MAX families are instant-on, non-volatile CPLDs used in glue logic functions for a range of electronics equipment in the communications, computing and storage, consumer, and industrial markets. Glue logic permits multiple subsystem components to interact. The HardCopy ASICs offer customers a migration path from the highest density FPGA families to ASIC for high-volume production.

Intellectual Property Cores

IP cores are pre-verified building blocks that execute standard system-level functions. Customers integrate IP cores in their PLD designs with the Company’s development software. Soft IP cores available for use in its devices include Nios series of embedded processors, the Company’s portfolio of MegaCore functions that it licenses to its customers, and its Altera Megafunction Partners Program (AMPP) cores, which are pre-verified by the Company and licensed to its customers by third parties. The Nios series of embedded processors use a reduced instruction-set computing (RISC) architecture and can be used in the Company’s FPGAs as an alternative to discrete microcontroller solutions. Altera offers a range of soft IP cores for DSP algorithms, bus interfaces, memory controllers, telecommunications, data communications, microprocessors, and peripherals. Before licensing a soft IP core, customers can download an encrypted soft IP core from its Website and verify that it works in their own system designs.

Development Tools

Customers use Altera’s development tools, consisting primarily of the Quartus II software, for design entry, design compilation, design verification, and device programming. Designers can use its development tools on a variety of computing platforms, including Microsoft Windows, UNIX (including Solaris and HP-UX), and Linux operating environments, with built-in interfaces to many electronic design automation (EDA) tools offered by Cadence Design Systems, Inc., Mentor Graphics Corporation, Synopsys, Inc. and others.