Imec and Altera Corporation announced a broadening of their strategic research collaboration in the framework of imec’s INSITE program. Initially focusing on technology insight into 3-D process technologies, collaboration between imec and Altera will now be broadened toward pathfinding process development kits (PDKs) for logic technology.

Altera’s participation in imec’s industrial affiliation program INSITE is focused on the evaluation of 3D technologies and its impact on Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) products. Altera and imec are extending their research collaboration agreement to include 14/10nm CMOS technologies. Imec and Altera will evaluate the readiness and limits of various patterning, finFET and novel interconnect technology options for use in FPGA products.

Imec’s INSITE program provides the design community in fabless, fablite and IDM companies with technology data that can be used for early assessment of the impact of these technologies on product roadmaps and the potential for future products. The combined impact of technology, circuit design and system-level architecture options on power, performance, and area (PPA) are evaluated and a cost assessment is provided. Imec’s INSITE program allows for product roadmap steering, early feedback toward technology specification, early decisions on required architectural design changes and faster learning cycles for technology adoption with reduced risks.

“Altera is an important partner in imec’s technology-design ecosystem. After a successful year of collaboration with Altera we are delighted to broaden our work,” said Luc Van den hove, president and CEO at imec. “This agreement is yet another confirmation of the value and relevance of our INSITE offering. INSITE consolidates the technology knowledge of imec’s logic devices scaling program to help companies anticipate new technologies when designing next-generation systems and applications, and accelerate their market launch.”

“As FPGAs continue to evolve as a result of silicon convergence, it is imperative our devices leverage the latest, most advanced technologies,” said Misha Burich, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Altera. “By collaborating with imec on very deep submicron technologies, we assure our future products will deliver the capabilities that enable our customers to be successful.”