Intel Corp’s microprocessor business has grown so big that some of the other parts of the company’s business that were once strategic have become relatively vestigial, and the company is doing a bit of housecleaning. It is to sell its programmable logic business unit to San Jose-based Altera Corp for about $50m, of which $25m will be paid in cash and the rest with about 779,277 Altera shares, giving Intel a staje of under 5%. Altera gets Intel programmable logic device products and licences to use associated process technologies and intellectual property to build the products. Intel has agreed to supply wafers to Altera to support the business. Employee transfers are not included in the deal, though Altera said it may offer jobs to Intel employees. The product line consists of 15 devices ranging from the 22V10 product to the new FLEXlogic line. Software support will continue to be provided by Altera through Intel’s PLDshell product and will be added into Altera’s MAX+PLUS II software in future.
