Cyclone III FPGAs now available for new applications
(Technology News, 01 Apr 2008 )
By Robin Lange, Managing Editor, EDN Asia
Altera announces a new 8x8 mm2 packaging (M164) for its family of 65-nm Cyclone III FPGAs, enabling designers of space-constrained high-volume applications in consumer, military and industrial markets to take advantage of what’s said to be the combined lowest power and density leadership of the Cyclone III devices.
The tiny 164-pin package with up to 16K logic elements (LEs) extends the Cyclone III FPGA’s high-density small-package offering that includes 14x14 mm2 256-pin (U256) and 17x17 mm2 484-pin (U484) packages. Each of these packages offers a very high amount of logic and I/Os for its footprint, allowing engineers to use FPGAs in new applications, such as handheld radios, satellite phones, I/O modules, and consumer displays.
Cyclone III devices consume 75 percent less power than competing FPGAs while delivering 5K to 120K LEs, up to 4 Mbits of memory and up to 288 digital signal processing (DSP) multipliers. Further, the Cyclone III FPGA family delivers as much as 60 percent faster performance than competing low-cost FPGAs. Built on TSMC’s 65-nm Low-Power (LP) process, the Cyclone III family includes devices that are qualified for commercial, industrial and extended temperatures.
These competitively priced FPGAs are currently available globally.
