Silver Lake- and Intel-backed FPGA maker Altera is preparing to file confidentially for an initial public offering that could raise more than $2 billion as soon as this year, Reuters reported on September 10, 2026 — potentially the largest US semiconductor listing since Arm Holdings' 2023 debut.
$8.75B To A $10B+ Public Float
Sources told Reuters that Silver Lake has tapped Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley as underwriters, though the order of the syndicate has not been finalized. The San Jose, California-based FPGA specialist is expected to file confidentially in the coming weeks, with terms still able to change. A $2 billion-plus raise would be a rapid mark-up from the $8.75 billion valuation implied by Silver Lake's September 2025 majority buyout, when the PE firm paid $4.46 billion for a 51% controlling stake alongside co-investor MGX. Intel retains a 49% stake.
Agilex, AI And Defense
Altera makes programmable logic chips — including the Agilex 3, 5 and 7 SoC FPGA families — that are used in AI inference, telecom infrastructure, industrial equipment, aerospace and military systems. CEO Raghib Hussain, who succeeded Sandra Rivera in May 2025, told Reuters this summer that the company was "preparing for an eventual public listing" as it pushed harder into AI and robotics.
Second Act For A Public Chipmaker
An Altera IPO would mark the company's return to public markets a decade after Intel took it private for $16.7 billion in 2015 and folded it into its Programmable Solutions Group. Under CEO Lip-Bu Tan, Intel has leaned on asset sales, cost cuts and equity issuance — including a roughly $20 billion follow-on stock offering in August — to fund a manufacturing and AI-infrastructure push, and the US government took a 9.9% stake in Intel through an $8.9 billion investment last year tied to previously awarded semiconductor and defense funding.
A Semiconductor IPO Window
Altera's paperwork lands in a red-hot IPO market. Excluding SPACs, US listings raised a record $137 billion through the end of August, according to Dealogic, and Anthropic is expected to file as soon as October at a targeted $100 billion raise. For context on Altera's peers now testing public markets and the wider chip-and-AI capital cycle, see our coverage of Positron's $875M Series C, Ayar Labs' Series E extension, and Oracle's blockbuster AI cloud quarter.
Reporting based on coverage from Reuters, Bloomberg and The Star.