1. Introduction
CII51001-3.2
Introduction
Following the immensely successful first-generation Cyclone
®
device
family, Altera
®
Cyclone II FPGAs extend the low-cost FPGA density
range to 68,416 logic elements (LEs) and provide up to 622 usable I/O
pins and up to 1.1 Mbits of embedded memory. Cyclone II FPGAs are
manufactured on 300-mm wafers using TSMC's 90-nm low-k dielectric
process to ensure rapid availability and low cost. By minimizing silicon
area, Cyclone II devices can support complex digital systems on a single
chip at a cost that rivals that of ASICs. Unlike other FPGA vendors who
compromise power consumption and performance for low-cost, Altera’s
latest generation of low-cost FPGAs—Cyclone II FPGAs, offer 60% higher
performance and half the power consumption of competing 90-nm
FPGAs. The low cost and optimized feature set of Cyclone II FPGAs make
them ideal solutions for a wide array of automotive, consumer,
communications, video processing, test and measurement, and other
end-market solutions. Reference designs, system diagrams, and IP, found
at
www.altera.com,
are available to help you rapidly develop complete
end-market solutions using Cyclone II FPGAs.
Low-Cost Embedded Processing Solutions
Cyclone II devices support the Nios II embedded processor which allows
you to implement custom-fit embedded processing solutions. Cyclone II
devices can also expand the peripheral set, memory, I/O, or performance
of embedded processors. Single or multiple Nios II embedded processors
can be designed into a Cyclone II device to provide additional
co-processing power or even replace existing embedded processors in
your system. Using Cyclone II and Nios II together allow for low-cost,
high-performance embedded processing solutions, which allow you to
extend your product's life cycle and improve time to market over
standard product solutions.
Low-Cost DSP Solutions
Use Cyclone II FPGAs alone or as DSP co-processors to improve
price-to-performance ratios for digital signal processing (DSP)
applications. You can implement high-performance yet low-cost DSP
systems with the following Cyclone II features and design support:
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Altera Corporation
February 2008
Up to 150 18 × 18 multipliers
Up to 1.1 Mbit of on-chip embedded memory
High-speed interfaces to external memory
1–1
ALTERA [ ALTERA CORPORATION ]
