Intel’s contract foundry business has a new client, and it’s a big one. Altera formally signed up for Intel’s upcoming 14nm process on Monday. The company will build a big family of programmable gate arrays using Intel’s fabs.

However, Intel’s 14nm process is still in development and it could be a couple of years before it starts churning out Altera’s next gen chips. Intel’s latest CPUs are built using the 22nm process, although quite a few chips are still 32nm.

Altera CTO Misha Burich told Venture Beat that Altera’s high end products will be built “only with Intel”.

“We look at the best available technology. Intel is ahead of the industry in process node advantages,” he said.

Altera’s sales in 2012 totalled $1.8 billion and it used TSMC as its sole chip manufacturer.