Altera Demonstrates Its Automotive In-Cabin Infotainment Development Platform at Convergence 2008

--Altera Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR - News) today announced its Platform ASSP Replacement Infotainment System (P.A.R.I.S.) is available to automotive designers and OEMs developing infotainment, navigation, comfort and convenience, and drivers-assistance systems. Jointly developed with Gleichmann Electronics Research GmbH, the P.A.R.I.S. Platform delivers a complete development environment, including tools, intellectual property (IP) and software, dramatically easing the development of automotive in-cabin systems. Altera is demonstrating the P.A.R.I.S. Platform in its booth 626 at the Convergence 2008 show at the Cobo Center in Detroit, Michigan, from October 20 to 22.

Altera’s FPGA-based P.A.R.I.S. Platform includes pre-verified IP from more than a dozen third-party hardware and software vendors. Using the P.A.R.I.S. Platform, automotive designers can easily expand the functions of their automotive systems and seamlessly migrate their FPGA-based systems across multiple vehicle classes. This approach significantly reduces the lengthy and costly design cycle of fixed-function ASSPs. The third-party IP partners currently supported within the P.A.R.I.S. Platform include:

• Altia: GUI building tool for automotive human machine interface (HMI) development
• Bosch: EDAR enhanced digital audio routing
• Embwise: SDHC software stack and drivers
• Emsys: USB stack and drivers, and USB 2.0 host
• Eureka: SDHC hardware interface
• Evatronix: ATA host controller IP and drivers
• ExpressLogic: ThreadX operating system
• Omnivision: Automotive camera
• SMSC: MOST Netservices and IFI/SMSC MOST MLB IP
• SpriritDSP: MP3 decoder
• TES: D/AVE vector graphics acceleration and OpenGL ES library

Convergence 2008 attendees will see a first-hand demonstration of the P.A.R.I.S. Platform, integrating an infotainment system-on-a-chip (SoC) into an Altera® Stratix® III FPGA running on an Altera Nios® II embedded processor. The platform features a graphical user interface (GUI) with LCD touch screen, and performs functions that include streaming encoded audio files (MP3 or WAV), audio decoding, audio routing and a Media Oriented System Transport (MOST) interface. Additional capabilities of the P.A.R.I.S. Platform will be on display, including a lane departure warning application, 3D graphics features, a multi-view camera mosaic application, fisheye correction capabilities and single-chip analog cluster control.

“The automotive electronics industry is experiencing tremendous growth as car manufacturers incorporate greater levels of functionality in their in-cabin systems,” said Robert Blake, vice president of automotive and consumer business unit at Altera. “The struggle for semiconductor vendors and automotive designers alike is keeping up on the latest industry trends and making the necessary modifications to their automotive systems as quickly as possible. The P.A.R.I.S. Platform gives automotive designers a highly efficient way to expand their system in a cost-effective manner, while meeting critical time-to-market windows.”

To learn more about Altera’s automotive solutions, including the automotive applications Altera is demonstrating at Convergence 2008, the P.A.R.I.S. Platform or to view a variety of industry-specific white papers, visit the automotive portion of Altera’s website at www.altera.com/pr/automotive.

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.