Altera Introduces Stratix II Development Kits for High-Speed, DSP, and Embedded System Designs

San Jose, Calif., September 1, 2004 — Altera Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR) today introduced the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio of development kits for the latest generation of high-density FPGAs. The portfolio, which includes a high-speed interface kit, a DSP kit, and an embedded design kit, gives customers everything they need to begin implementing their designs in silicon.

“Customers can now take full advantage of Stratix II—the industry’s fastest and biggest FPGAs. Additionally, they can rely on Altera’s quality and availability,” said Bob Beachler, senior director, development kits and the Altera Megafunctions Partner Program (AMPP). “With design windows shrinking and design complexity increasing, designers need comprehensive development tools that allow them to implement their designs quickly and easily.”

The Stratix II Development Kit Portfolio

All three Stratix II development kits combine the capabilities of Altera’s IP, technical services, and development software to allow customers to take full advantage of the Stratix II device family’s industry-leading performance and features. Each kit includes a Stratix II development board, 16-Mbytes of flash memory, a CD containing documentation and reference designs, a power supply, a USB Blaster download cable, and other cables. The kits also ship with Altera’s Quartus® II design software and a suite of interface IP cores available from Altera.

• Stratix II High-Speed Development Kit – The Stratix II High-Speed Development Kit delivers a comprehensive platform for designs supporting high-speed interfaces. Included in the kit is the Stratix II EP2S60F1020 device and DDR2 SDRAM DIMM modules for high-speed memory transfers. The kit also supports high-speed I/O protocols such as system packet interface level 4, phase 2 (SPI-4.2) with dynamic phase alignment (DPA), SERDES-Framer interface level 4 (SFI-4), 10-Gigabit 16-bit interface (XSBI), HyperTransport™, RapidIO®, PCI and PCI-X interfaces, and low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS).  

• Stratix II DSP Kit – The Stratix II DSP Kit delivers a complete digital signal processing development environment with a DSP development board, the DSP Builder development tool, and MATLAB/Simulink evaluation software. The development board features the Stratix II EP2S60F1020 device along with analog interfaces to enable high-performance wireless, video, and audio applications. These analog interfaces include two 125 MSPS ADCs, two 165 MSPS DACs, a Video DAC, and a 96 KHz stereo audio codec. Additionally, the board contains support for external memory, including 16-Mbytes of SDRAM, 1-Mbyte SRAM, and 32 Mbyte of CompactFlash. Finally, the board has a connector for interfacing to Texas Instruments’ external memory interface (EMIF) to speed development of FPGA co-processors.  

• Nios®II Development Kit, Stratix II Edition – The Nios II Development Kit, Stratix II Edition provides designers with the resources needed to begin developing embedded processor systems on Stratix II FPGAs, including a full license for the Nios II family of processors, the Nios II integrated development environment (IDE), and a full-featured development board. In addition to a Stratix II EP2S30F672 device, the development board also features 16-Mbytes of SDRAM and 1 Mbyte of SRAM, a 10/100 Ethernet port, two serial ports, a Mictor connector for software trace debug, and two expansion headers.

Pricing and Availability

All three Stratix II development kits are available for ordering through Altera’s distribution channel and sales representatives. Pricing is $1,995 for the high-speed and DSP kits, and $995 for the Nios II development kit. Shipping of the kits is planned for September. Further information about Altera’s development kits is available at www.altera.com/devkits.

About the Stratix II Device Family

Featuring an innovative new logic structure, Stratix II devices offer over twice the logic density and 50 percent higher performance at 40 percent lower cost than first-generation Stratix devices. Stratix II devices offer more than double the logic density and are 50 percent faster compared to the nearest competitive devices. The new logic structure allows designers to conserve device resources by packing more functionality into a smaller area. For more information about Stratix II devices, please visit www.altera.com/stratix2.

About Altera

Altera Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR) 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. More information is available at www.altera.com.

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Altera, The Programmable Solutions Company, the stylized Altera logo, specific device designations and all other words that are identified as trademarks and/or service marks are, unless noted otherwise, the trademarks and service marks of Altera Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. HyperTransport is a licensed trademark of the HyperTransport Technology Consortium. RapidIO is a registered trademark of the RapidIO Trade Association. All other product or service names are the property of their respective holder.