I find this an interesting move. Not many remember that Lattice Semiconductor was nominally[1] spun out of Intel in '83. Back in the early 80's the "computer" companys like AMD, Intel, and National were also making chips to help connect them to the chips around them. And people had started building something called Programmable Array Logic (PALs) which was trademarked by AMD so folks also called them Gate Array Logic or GALs. The idea was that you had this microprocessor that had one interface or needed a simple peripheral, and this programmble chip could provide it.

I arrived at Intel just after the folks who started Lattice had left and the position of Intel was that programmable logic was a neutral idea at best, and generally bad or unsuitable for any sort of volume idea which is where Intel wanted to play.

But the interesting thing about the 22nm node is that you can put a whole lot of programmability into a pretty cost effective FPGA, and so now the pendulum hit ASICs and now is starting to find FPGAs in "general purpose" production products. And here we are with Intel buying an FPGA company.

[1] My memory is fuzzy on the exact details, whether it was just a bunch of engineers who decided to quit and moved over to Lattice when it was founded or if Intel helped with the founding by trading some fab capacity and engineers in exchange for some equity in the new company.