(an Altera product)]]
() is a leading manufacturer of
Programmable Logic Device s. It is a member of the
NASDAQ-100 group of technology
Stocks .
Altera is one of the pioneers of Programmable Logic, following notable early leaders Signetics and MMI in introducing PLDs. Altera develops many features that is gearing towards system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) capability. Some of the more recent examples include embedded memory, embedded processors, and high-speed transceivers. Altera is famous for its operational excellence. The success in 130nm and 90nm product launches are good case studies. Altera's
Nios and
Nios II soft core processors and HardCopy II & HardCopy devices are extending Altera's reach in addressable markets, and put Altera in the world of embedded processors and structured
ASIC s respectively. Among its chief competitors are
Xilinx ,
Lattice Semiconductor ,
Actel ,
Quicklogic and
Atmel .
Although their software suite extensively supports
VHDL and
Verilog as primary languages, Altera is the developer of the
Hardware Description Language known as
AHDL .
