Altera Ships Industry's Highest Density FPGA With Embedded Transceivers

EP2SGX130 Device Enables Designers to Configure Multiple Protocols on a Single Device

San Jose, Calif., July 17, 2006—Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) today announced that it has begun shipping the Stratix^® II GX family’s EP2SGX130 device, the industry’s largest FPGA with embedded transceivers. The EP2SGX130 features more than 132,000 equivalent logic elements (LEs), giving designers ample logic resources to implement multiple protocols or highly complex intellectual property (IP). This enables designers to address multiple markets and customer requirements cost-effectively with a single device. In addition, 20 fully functional multigigabit transceivers in the EP2SGX130 device make it ideal for PCI Express bridging and multiple-port line card applications.

“Stratix II GX devices are the only FPGAs with transceivers that provide excellent jitter performance and the lowest power consumption all the way to 6.375 Gbps,” said David Greenfield, Altera’s senior director of marketing for high-end FPGAs. “A great benefit of the EP2SGX130 density and channel count is that multiple protocols easily fit on a single device, providing a new level of design flexibility.”

Where board space and power are primary considerations for device selection, the Stratix II GX FPGA family offers 20 channels of the industry’s lowest power transceivers, with 6.5 watts less power dissipation at 6.375 Gbps than the nearest competitor. The Stratix II GX FPGA transceivers’ optimized signal integrity has been demonstrated for boards and backplanes using FR-4 materials at over 1.25 meters length, thus lowering OEM system costs and improving manufacturing yields. These low-power transceivers also lower cost by reducing cooling system complexity and associated equipment maintenance expenses.

Altera is the only FPGA vendor that designs its high-density devices with redundant circuitry to ensure high yields and, in turn, readily available parts. The EP2SGX130 device, also available in RoHS-compliant packaging, is the second member of the Stratix II GX FPGA family to begin shipping to customers. The entire portfolio of Stratix II GX FPGAs is on track to complete its rollout this year, with a complete ecosystem of multiprotocol IP, design materials, evaluation boards and EDA tools available on Altera’s website at www.altera.com/stratix2gx.

Altera's 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.