Altera Announces Stratix IV GT and Arria II GX FPGAs: Expands Industry's Broadest Integrated Transceiver Portfolio

• Stratix IV GT FPGAs: Only FPGAs With Integrated 11.3-Gbps Transceivers
• Arria II GX FPGAs: Optimized for Applications Requiring up to 3.75 Gbps

San Jose, Calif., February 2, 2009—Expanding its leadership position in transceiver technology, Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) today announced two new FPGA families with integrated transceivers. The new Stratix^® IV GT and Arria^® II GX 40-nm FPGA families join Stratix IV GX FPGAs and HardCopy^® IV GX ASICs to expandthe industry’s broadest portfolio of transceiver FPGA and ASIC solutions. Altera’s portfolio offers transceiver speeds from 155 Mbps to 11.3 Gbps that address a wide range of applications, from cost sensitive video cameras to ultra-high-performance backhaul systems.

The Arria II GX, Stratix IV GT, and Stratix IV GX FPGAs and HardCopy IV GX ASICs utilize common transceiver technology and are supported by a common set of development tools that enable system designers to develop full system-on-chip (SoC) solutions. This portfolio delivers both FPGA solutions from 16K logic elements (LEs) to 530K LEs, and HardCopy ASIC solutions of up to 11.5 million ASIC gates.

The programmable fabric and integrated programmable transceivers provide designers with the flexibility needed to overcome unpredictable design requirements. Altera’s transceiver technology provides easy-to-use signal integrity features that accelerate product development, while consuming less power than competing solutions.

"Altera's expanded portfolio of transceiver FPGAs and HardCopy ASICs address the increasing market demand for a range of transceiver solutions. Since each application requires a unique set of features at specific performance, power, and price points, Altera developed this portfolio to provide optimal solutions to address a broad range of applications," said Danny Biran, senior vice president of product and corporate marketing at Altera Corporation. "These products offer superior signal integrity, the lowest jitter specifications, and broad high-speed I/O protocol compliance, alleviating the challenges facing designers of systems requiring transceivers."

The highest performing FPGAs available, Stratix IV GT devices are also the industry’s first FPGAs to include integrated transceivers operating at 11.3 Gbps. The architecture is optimized specifically for 40G and 100G applications such as communications systems, high-end test equipment, and military communications systems. Stratix IV GT FPGAs have 24 transceivers operating at 11.3 Gbps, and an additional 24 transceivers operating at 6.5 Gbps, to deliver the industry's highest bandwidth available. The Stratix IV GT devices also offer up to 530K LEs, 20.3-Mbits internal RAM and 1,288 18 x 18 multipliers. For detailed information, see www.altera.com/pr/stratixivgt.

Arria II GX devices are the lowest power 3.75 Gbps transceiver FPGAs and are cost optimized for applications using mainstream protocols such as PCI Express (PCIe) and Gigabit Ethernet (GbE). They feature up to 16 3.75-Gbps transceivers, 256K LEs, and 8.5 Mbits of internal RAM. In addition, the Arria II GX FPGAs also support targeted protocols such as CPRI for LTE and WiMAX wireless infrastructure access equipment, GPON and XAUI for wireline infrastructure access and networking equipment, and triple-speed SDI for broadcast and other video processing equipment. A collection of reference designs and design examples accelerates the development of solutions using Arria II GX FPGAs. For detailed information on these new devices, see www.altera.com/pr/arriaiigx.

The FPGAs and HardCopy ASICs in Altera’s transceiver portfolio are supported by Altera’s new Quartus^® II design software version 9.0. The design software provides a single tool suite for all FPGA and ASIC products, complemented by one IP set and a common transceiver technology. Together, this delivers the "learn it once, use it everywhere" experience that increases system designer productivity while reducing time to market and engineering expenses. Altera also provides a suite of tools to ease transceiver integration and board design, including the Pre-Emphasis and Link Estimation (PELE) tool, the power distribution network (PDN) tool, and the Early Simultaneous Switching Noise (SSN) Estimator, as well as SPICE and IBIS simulation models and a board-design guidelines document.

With the introduction of these two new FPGA families, Altera builds on the existing Stratix IV GX FPGAs and HardCopy IV GX ASICs. Stratix IV GX FPGAs are the industry’s first and only available 40-nm FPGAs. HardCopy IV GX ASICs are the lowest risk ASICs with transceivers. Designers can prototype with the Stratix IV GX FPGA series and seamlessly migrate to HardCopy IV GX ASICs to achieve the lowest total cost, lowest risk and fastest time-to-market solution for their custom logic needs. For additional information, visit www.altera.com/pr/40nmdevices.

Pricing and Availability

Stratix IV GT devices are shipping now. Contact your Altera^® sales representative for pricing.

The first Arria II GX device, the EP2AGX125, will ship in May 2009 with production devices scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2009. Budgetary pricing for the smallest device, the EP2AGX20, will start as low as $15 for 100K unit quantities in 2010. All of the Arria II GX devices will be supported in the Quartus II design software version 9.0 in March 2009.

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 at www.altera.com.