Intel is expected to acquire chip maker Altera for $17 billion, as per a report from The New York Times. The report said that, Intel, world’s largest chipmaker would use Altera’s semiconductor designs to expand beyond the market for personal computers.
The price for Altera could be as much as $54 per share, said the report. The expected price is 56% higher than the one at which Altera traded before The Wall Street Journal first reported talks between the companies on March 27. The two companies had been involved in acquisition talks since the beginning of this year. In fact, in April, Altera rejected an offer from Intel for the same price of $54 per share. Earlier this year, Intel signed a standstill agreement with Altera that expires on June 1, giving the world’s largest chipmaker the option to launch a hostile bid after that.
Intel makes processors and memory for PCs, servers, and mobile devices, Altera concentrates on field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Last month, another chipmaker, Broadcomm was acquired by Avago for $37 billion.