[News] Intel’s Altera Unit Nears Sale as Silver Lake Reportedly Leads Talks

While speculation swirls about Intel splitting and selling to tech giants like TSMC and Broadcom, its FPGA unit appears closer to a sale. According to Bloomberg, Silver Lake Management is in exclusive negotiations to acquire a majority stake in Altera.

As Bloomberg noted earlier, private equity firms such as Francisco Partners and Silver Lake Management are among the contenders, while Apollo Global Management and Bain Capital are also in the running for Altera. Lattice Semiconductor, one of Altera’s FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) peers, is also rumored to be competing.

However, it seems that Silver Lake has emerged as the frontrunner, as the private equity firm is finalizing details of its investment in Altera, which produces versatile chips mainly used in telecom networks, according to insiders cited by the report.

According to Bloomberg, talks are in advanced stages, but the exact stake size remains undecided. Negotiations could still face delays or fall through, the report adds.

Intel and Silver Lake representatives declined to comment, as per Bloomberg.

In 2015, Intel acquired Altera for roughly $16.7 billion, and has been seeking to sell a stake in the unit as a turnaround strategy since late 2024.

According to a previous CNBC report, Intel planned to sell at least a minority stake in Altera, a move that could generate several billion dollars in cash for the struggling semiconductor giant. Some of the bidders, however, are said to be valuing Altera as low as $9 billion, as per Bloomberg.

Notably, before Intel acquired it, Altera was the second-largest FPGA maker by sales. Its main rival, Xilinx, was bought by AMD in 2022 for $35 billion.

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(Photo credit: Intel)