Systems/Enterprise:
GRID ENABLES CYCLONE DEVICES MOVE
TO
PRODUCTION FASTER
Continuing its aggressive and
methodical
engineering execution, Altera
Corporation announced that two
Cyclonedevices,
the EP1C6 and EP1C20 devices,
have moved from sampling to
production-qualified
status six weeks ahead of
schedule. Originally targeted
for March, the move to
volume production is a
result of significant
engineering accomplishments
driven by the success of
TSMC's robust and proven
0.13-micron process
technology, and Altera's new
"24/7" test methodology.
Designers of
volume-driven applications now have
access to all the benefits of
the most
advanced programmable logic technology
at ASIC prices.
"Altera
Cyclone FPGAs provide high-flexibility to our medical equipment
products,"
said Mu Le Min, vice president and director for R&D of Shenzhen
Mindray
Bio-Medical Electronics Co. Ltd.
"Cyclone devices are more
cost
efficient than ASICs, which have high start-up
costs and the barrier of
minimum order quantities. Also, Altera's design
software is quick and easy,
providing us additional cost and time-to-market
advantages."
Altera
harnessed the power of the Internet to develop a new, continuous,
massively
parallel product test methodology. Involving several teams in
various Altera
locations around the world, engineers work on different areas
of testability
and user check out, and seamlessly hand-off from one group to
another in
different time zones.
This "24/7" test methodology results in shorter
development times that in turn
accelerates customers' time to market. Coupled
with a tight partnership with
TSMC, this excellence in engineering is proving
to customers that Altera's
focus on quality and reliability, and its steadfast
commitment to customers'
needs is paying off.
"Cyclone device's
target
markets have a quick lifecycle ramp, so we know that
our customers are
just as
sensitive to time-to-market pressures as they are to
cost," said Bill
Hata,
vice president of product engineering at Altera. "We
put huge emphasis
on the
timely delivery of silicon to our customers. Our
time-to-market is
their
time-to-market."
The Cyclone device family is the only "built
from the
ground up" low-cost
0.13-micron FPGA in production. Initial shipments
to
distributors have begun
and Altera plans to stock its worldwide
distribution
channel with the first
25,000 units during the next two
months.
Pricing and Availability
Production devices of the
EP1C6 and
EP1C20 devices are available today. The
EP1C12 and EP1C3 members of
the
Cyclone device family are scheduled to go
straight to production by March
and
April, respectively. Thanks to Altera's
vertical migration packaging
strategy,
designers can lay out their boards for
any of the Cyclone devices
and use the
EP1C20 and EP1C6 devices until the
EP1C3 or EP1C12 devices are
available.
With Quartus II design software support available since
September and the
successful rollout of the first Cyclone devices, system
designers can now ramp
their volume applications today using the lowest-cost
FPGA products currently
available on the market. Prices of Cyclone device
range from $4 to $40 per
unit for high volumes of the EP1C3 and EP1C20
devices, respectively.
About the Cyclone Device Family
Cyclone devices are the
industry's lowest-cost FPGAs. With densities
ranging
from 2,910 to 20,060
logic elements, Cyclone devices feature up to 288
Kbits
of embedded memory and
are based on a 1.5-V, all-layer-copper SRAM
process.
Cyclone devices offer up
to two phase-locked loops (PLLs) per device
and a
hierarchical clocking
structure for extensive on- and off-chip clock
management. Each device
supports a variety of single-ended I/O standards such
as LVTTL, LVCMOS, PCI,
and SSTL-2/3 and differential I/O technology supporting
LVDS signaling for
data rates up to 311 Mbps.
Cyclone devices have
dedicated circuitry to
interface with high-performance
external single data
rate (SDR) SDRAM and
double data rate (DDR) SDRAM and
FCRAM memory
devices.
About
Altera
Altera Corporation is the world's
pioneer in
system-on-a-programmable-chip
(SOPC) solutions. Combining
programmable logic
technology with software tools,
intellectual property, and
technical services,
Altera provides high-value
programmable solutions to
approximately 14,000
customers worldwide.
http://www.altera.com
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