Altera's Stratix IV GX FPGAs Deliver Unprecedented Performance for Sumitomo Electric Industries' LDPC System

Sumitomo Realizes Over 100-Gbps Performance in Its LDPC System Leveraging Stratix IV GX FPGAs

SAN JOSE, Calif.-- July 13, 2009 -- Altera Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR - News) today announced Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. is leveraging 40-nm Stratix® IV GX FPGAs in an advanced low-density parity-check (LDPC) system. Altera's high-performance, high-bandwidth Stratix IV GX FPGAs enabled Sumitomo to develop a high-speed measurement system that verifies the forward error correction (FEC) code for high-speed digital signal processing (DSP). Sumitomo's high-throughput LDPC system features a novel encoding and decoding algorithm capable of improving the signal quality in applications that require highly efficient data transmission, such as image processing, next-generation optical memory, high-definition (HD) digital video broadcasting, mobile broadband communications and optical networking.

"Altera's Stratix IV GX FPGA provides us with a cost-effective, single-chip solution that delivers best-in-class performance and data rate speeds, allowing us to realize over 100-Gbps performance in our LDPC system," said Mr. Takashi Maehata, assistant general manager, transmission system department, information and communication laboratories, Sumitomo Electric Industries. "Obtaining this level of performance would not have been possible without Stratix IV GX FPGAs and their integrated 8.5-Gbps transceivers. As a result of using Altera's Stratix IV GX FPGAs, our LDPC system achieves a throughput of 132-Gbps encoding and 24.48-Gbps decoding."

Altera® Stratix IV GX FPGAs and Quartus® II design software provide Sumitomo with a seamless development environment from algorithm to automatic HDL generation. The Stratix IV GX FPGA-based LDPC system interfaces with a multi-Gigabit analog/digital converter (ADC) and features a Nios® II embedded processor. The embedded processor operates a TCP/IP protocol stack and facilitates the LDPC encoder and decoder. The system's circuits were developed using the Quartus II software and the DSP Builder and SOPC Builder tools.

Luanne Schirrmeister, senior director of component product marketing at Altera, stated, "Today's leading-edge, data-intensive systems are increasing the demand for high-bandwidth devices that are capable of rapidly processing large amounts of data. Our 40-nm Stratix IV FPGAs continue to push the technology envelope in terms of performance and data-rate speeds, allowing companies like Sumitomo to develop advanced systems that previously were not possible."

About Stratix IV FPGA Family

Altera's 40-nm Stratix IV FPGAs deliver the industry's highest density, highest performance and lowest power, while providing proven transceiver and memory interface technology. The high-end FPGAs feature three variants, a non-transceiver enhanced (E) version and two transceiver (GX and GT) versions. The GX and GT variants feature integrated transceivers that provide an unprecedented level of system bandwidth (up to 8.5 Gbps and 11.3 Gbps respectively) with superior signal integrity. Stratix IV E FPGAs are high in density and rich with embedded memory and DSP resources. For more information on the market-leading features offered by Stratix IV FPGAs, visit www.altera.com/pr/stratix4.

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.