Intel's programmable chip division, Altera, announced today a range of key product launches designed to extend the capabilities of artificial intelligence into edge computing and cloud environments. The new offerings encompass FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array) hardware, software, and development tools, significantly broadening the applications and market reach of programmable solutions, thereby enhancing their accessibility and usability.

At its annual developers' conference, Altera CEO Sandra Rivera detailed the next-generation, power- and cost-optimized Agilex 3 FPGA in a press briefing, simultaneously unveiling new development kits and software support for the Agilex 5 FPGA. She emphasized, "In collaboration with our ecosystem and distribution partners, Altera is committed to providing innovators with cutting-edge programmable technology through FPGA solutions, ensuring ease of design and deployment. This pivotal release underscores our dedication to unlocking greater value in data centers, aerospace and defense, communication infrastructure, automotive, industrial, testing, medical, and embedded markets through programmable logic."

Rivera noted that she has been leading Altera for approximately nine months, and today marks Altera Innovator Day, a significant milestone signifying Altera's relatively independent operations under Intel. "Our aim is to become the global leader in the FPGA market, an ambitious and challenging objective. As the only company worldwide offering comprehensive FPGA solutions from cloud to edge, we are passionately and wholeheartedly pursuing this goal."

Regarding Altera's unique advantages, Rivera stated, "We are not just an independent FPGA supplier but also possess a complete solution ecosystem, excelling in high-performance accelerated computing, next-generation communication infrastructure, and intelligent edge applications. We focus on providing top-tier capabilities to our customers, enabling them to deploy FPGA solutions on a large scale in an efficient and cost-effective manner, thereby accelerating value realization within their overall computing platforms. Our customers and ecosystem partners are highly motivated by and actively participating in witnessing our growth."

For AI inference workloads, Altera integrates the Agilex FPGA series with AI Tensor Blocks and the Altera FPGA AI Suite, leveraging popular frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch, and OpenVINO, alongside mature FPGA development workflows, to significantly accelerate FPGA development for AI inference applications.

Notably, the Agilex 3 FPGA, specifically designed for embedded and intelligent edge applications, achieves substantial optimizations in power consumption, performance, and size. Compared to its predecessors, Agilex 3 offers enhanced integration, security, and performance, with a more compact form factor and a wide range of logic unit densities from 25,000 to 135,000. This FPGA series features programmable logic structures with built-in AI capabilities and is equipped with dual Cortex A55 ARM hard processor subsystems, providing robust real-time computing power for time-sensitive applications like autonomous driving and industrial IoT. Additionally, it seamlessly integrates sensors, drivers, actuators, and machine learning algorithms, facilitating advancements in smart factory automation technologies.

To meet the stringent requirements of defense and commercial projects, Agilex 3 FPGA has undergone significant security enhancements, including bitstream encryption, authentication, and physical tamper detection features, ensuring the stable operation and data security of critical applications like industrial automation. Leveraging the HyperFlex architecture, Agilex 3 FPGA achieves a 1.9x performance boost over the previous generation and further enhances system performance with high-speed transceivers (up to 12.5Gbps) and support for LPDDR4 memory.

It is reported that software support for Agilex 3 FPGA will be available in the first quarter of 2025, with development kits and product shipments expected to begin mid-2025. Additionally, Altera released the latest version of Quartus Prime Pro software to increase developer productivity and expedite time-to-market. The new version not only unlocks more Agilex series devices but also strengthens support for embedded applications, particularly those utilizing integrated hard processor subsystems or RISC-V solutions. Furthermore, Altera and its ecosystem partners have jointly launched 11 development kits and system modules based on Agilex 5 FPGA, providing developers with a wealth of entry-level resources.

Rivera concluded, "We provide these software tools to the ecosystem for free to lower the entry barriers and foster innovation. Through these efforts, we look forward to collaborating with our partners to drive the widespread adoption and development of FPGA technology across various fields."