SAN JOSE, CA and SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 15, 2013) - Altera® Corporation (NASDAQ: [ ALTR ]) and Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (NASDAQ: [ AMCC ]), also known as AppliedMicro, today announced they have signed a memorandum of understanding designed to result in the joint development and marketing of optimized solutions for data center applications. The strategic cooperation initiative will enable the two companies to combine advanced Altera FPGAs with silicon solutions from AppliedMicro, including the company's full line of connectivity and ARM® 64-bit X-Gene Server on a Chip products. 

"This agreement underscores our continued focus on enabling integrated, purpose-built solutions for our data center OTN customers," said George Jones, vice president, co-GM, Connectivity Products of AppliedMicro. "Combining Altera's advanced FPGA technology with our X-Gene Server on a Chip, Gearbox, PQX and QPSK products will provide our customers with highly optimized, cost-effective designs for next-generation data center infrastructure."

The collaboration will include shared efforts on system solution definition, co-development of reference designs and supporting software development. The resulting designs will combine the robust silicon and software from AppliedMicro with the performance and flexibility advantages of Altera's FPGAs.

"We believe the combination of the AppliedMicro processing and connectivity solutions with our FPGA technology will result in some of the industry's most innovative, flexible and high-performance solutions for data-center and OTN applications," said Scott Bibaud, senior vice president and general manager, Communication and Broadcast Division at Altera. "This cooperation will deliver optimized solutions in a highly attractive cost structure for our mutual customers."

The strategic cooperation initiative provides for the closely-coupled definition and development of solutions for high throughput data center server, storage and connectivity. Specifically, the companies intend to develop solutions that combine the AppliedMicro ARM 64-bit X-Gene processor offerings and advanced FPGAs from Altera.

The combined technologies will facilitate rapid adoption across enterprise networking platforms, next generation data centers and storage. The cooperation will span from hardware to software, providing the basis for extremely fast-turn designs in these multiple application areas.

About AppliedMicro
Applied Micro Circuits Corporation is a global leader in computing and connectivity solutions for next-generation cloud infrastructure and data centers. AppliedMicro delivers silicon solutions that dramatically lower total cost of ownership. Corporate headquarters are located in Sunnyvale, California. [ www.apm.com ].

About Altera
Altera programmable solutions enable system and semiconductor companies to rapidly and cost-effectively innovate, differentiate and win in their markets. Find out more about Altera's [ FPGA ], [ CPLD ] and [ ASIC ] devices at [ www.altera.com ]. Follow Altera via [ Facebook ], [ RSS ] and [ Twitter ].

Altera, the Altera logo, and all other words that are identified as trademarks are, unless noted otherwise, Registered, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and the trademarks of Altera Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Applied Micro Circuits Corporation, AMCC, AppliedMicro, X-Gene, and System on a Chip are trademarks or registered trademarks of Applied Micro Circuits Corporation. All other product or service names are the property of their respective holders.