The US-based investment firm expressed interest in Altera back in February after it was spun out into its own company.
Intel will retain 49% of the business, which it said will enable it to “participate in Altera’s future success while focusing on its core business”.
“Today’s announcement reflects our commitment to sharpening our focus, lowering our expense structure and strengthening our balance sheet,” said Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel. “Altera continues to make progress repositioning its product portfolio to participate in the fastest growing and most profitable segments of the field programmable gate array (FPGA) market.”
Altera, alongside Intel’s foundry business, was considered a potentially lucrative asset to sell after the company’s financial troubles came to the fore last summer.
Prior reports suggested several rival chipmakers expressed interest in Altera, but the investment firm came out on top.
Silver Lake already manages hundreds of billions in assets and has a track record of reviving major tech firms, notably taking Dell private and later profiting billions from VMware’s sale to Broadcom.
The deal, which is expected to close in the second half of 2025, sees Raghib Hussain succeed Sandra Rivera as Altera’s CEO.
Hussain joins the firm from Cavium, a fabless semiconductor firm he co-founded. The new Altera CEO previously held engineering roles at both Cisco and Cadence and helped found VPNet, an enterprise security company.
Kenneth Hao, chairman and managing partner of Silver Lake, said: “This investment represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in a scale leader in advanced semiconductors.
“Together with Hussain, we will be focused on strengthening Altera’s technology leadership position and investing in emerging AI-driven markets such as edge computing and robotics.”
“Backed by Silver Lake’s strong track record and now with clarity of focus as an independent company, Altera is well-positioned to build on its momentum and deliver breakthrough FPGA-based solutions that are shaping the future of compute driven by AI,” Hussain said.
The sale comes as Tan takes on the task of turning fortunes around at the embattled semiconductor firm, with the new CEO telling investors and customers at the company’s recent showcase: “Please be brutally honest with us.”
While Altera is now set to be sold, the uncertainty of Intel’s foundry unit also looks to be a little clearer, with reports surfacing earlier this month that the company agreed to join forces with TSMC on a joint venture.
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