Altera Beefs Up European Technology Center

Altera Corp. (San Jose, CA) is expanding its European Technology Center (ETC). Originally established two years ago, the ETC is chartered to execute research and development activities focused on chip design, software development, and the development of intellectual property (IP). The ETC, based in the Altera facilities near London, England, also provides local technical support to Altera's European customers.

As a regionally based unit, one of the objectives of the ETC is to anticipate the needs of Altera's European customers and satisfy those needs within Europe through advanced product development and local technical support. The initial plan was to recruit 20 engineers by the end of 1999; there are currently almost 40 with an expectation of 70 employees by the end of 2000.

The ETC has successfully recruited top-flight technical talent from throughout Europe including England, France, Germany, Greece, Russia, and Spain. More recently, Altera acquired HammerCores Inc., a DSP IP company. Martin Langhammer, HammerCores president and founder, joined the ETC in the role of chief scientist, and brings experience in implementing digital signal processing (DSP) within programmable logic devices (PLDs).

In addition to the continued growth of the ETC, Altera is expanding other operations throughout Europe. Improved customer support is also being established through the growing number of sales offices and with the opening of an Applications Engineering Group at the European Headquarters, in the UK. The resources in this group include engineering specialists, sophisticated laboratory equipment, and a range of EDA hardware platforms, to be used in assisting customers in system-level design.

Altera Corporation, The Programmable Solutions Company, was founded in 1983 and is a supplier of programmable logic devices and associated logic development software tools.