ALTERA Emulation Board

Cyclone: The Lowest-Cost FPGA Ever

See How Cyclone FPGAs Stand Against the Competition

Cyclone FPGAs Now Shipping Read All About It

　　Altera® Cyclone™ FPGAs-the lowest-cost FPGAs ever-are half the cost of competing devices. Cyclone FPGAs are the optimal solution for high-volume, price-sensitive applications that previously required the use of fixed solutions such as gate arrays and standard cells. Shipping multiple device densities in December 2002, Altera has rolled out Cyclone FPGAs in record time. System designers looking for a true low-cost solution for high-volume applications have immediate access to Cyclone devices through Altera's distribution channel. Begin designing for Cyclone FPGAs today, and take advantage of all the benefits of using programmable logic at the lowest cost in the market. See what customers are saying about Cyclone FPGAs.

　　Cyclone FPGAs are built on a cost-optimized, all-copper 1.5-V SRAM process, and offer powerful functionality at half the cost of competing FPGA products. With up to 20,060 logic elements (LEs) and 288 Kbits of RAM, Cyclone FPGAs can integrate many complex functions. Cyclone FPGAs offer multiple full-featured phase-locked loops (PLLs) to manage board-level clock networks and dedicated I/O interfaces for interfacing with industry standard external memory devices. Altera's Nios® embedded processor and a full intellectual property (IP) portfolio is available for development with Cyclone FPGAs. You can easily download Altera's no-cost QuartusR II Web Edition software and immediately have all the tools to begin your design for Cyclone FPGAs.

Higher Density for a Lower Price

　　The Cyclone device family is the clear low-cost leader in the FPGA market. With up to four times the density than previous low-cost FPGA families and volume prices at less than $1.50 per 1,000 LEs, Cyclone FPGAs set a new pricing standard for programmable logic. Figure 1 shows the price-per-logic-element trend and the maximum density offerings for Altera's low-cost FPGAs. The combination of a low-cost structure with the abundant device resources in Cyclone FPGAs allows implementation of complete system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) solutions, ideal for high-volume applications.

Figure 1: Pricing & Density Comparison Between Cyclone Devices & Previous Low-Cost FPGAs

Note:

Pricing depends on device density

A New Low-Cost Alternative for the ASIC Designer

　　Cyclone FPGAs provide a low-cost alternative for the next generation of applications currently using low-to-moderate-density ASICs. Today's system designers face many challenges, including increasing cost pressures and design complexity, emerging standards, and shrinking design cycles. ASIC development involves extensive engineering resources, design simulation and verification, and usually requires multiple re-spins. With its system-level integration capabilities, the Cyclone FPGA family eliminates the costly non-recurring engineering (NRE) charges, minimum ordering quantities (MOQs), and product delay risks that are associated with ASICs. With the Cyclone FPGA family, system designers now have a near-price-parity programmable solution, as compared to ASICs, for their high-volume requirements.

Markets & Applications

　　New market trends, such as worldwide standards, platform convergence, interactivity, and improved technology, continue to drive the need for cost-effective solutions. Cyclone FPGAs offer the price points and functionality necessary for customers in markets where innovation is key and being first-to-market determines leadership. The consumer, communications, computer peripheral, industrial, and automotive markets can all benefit from Cyclone FPGA integration in their low-cost, high-volume applications. Table 1 shows a sample of the applications that can use Cyclone FPGAs.

*Table 1. Cyclone Markets & Applications*
Markets	Applications
Consumer	Digital Set-Top Boxes & Integrated Digital Television Systems DVD Player/Recorder System Display & Projectors System
Communications	DSL routers Mid-Range & Low-end routers
Wireless	Wireless LAN Broadband fixed wireless
Industrial	Network test equipment Factory automation Process contr
Automotive	Car network layout Telematics/entertainment controller Telematics entertainment system Automotive gateway controller Automotive software radio receiver
Computing	Printers

Cyclone Performance & Features

Cyclone device performance rivals that of the industry's fastest FPGAs. Created with a balance of logic, memory, phase-locked loops (PLLs), and advanced I/O interfaces, Cyclone FPGAs are the answer for price-sensitive applications. Cyclone FPGAs offer the following:

A new programmable architecture that is low cost by design
Embedded memory resources to support a wide range of memory applications and digital signal processing (DSP) implementations
Dedicated external memory interface circuitry for integration with DDR FCRAM and SDRAM devices as well as SDR SDRAM memory devices
Support for serial, bus, and network interfaces and a wide range of communications protocols
On- and off-chip system timing management using embedded PLLs
Support for single-ended I/O standards and differential I/O technology supporting LVDS signaling for data rates up to 311 Mbps
Processing power with support for Nios embedded processors
Low-cost configuration solution with the new serial configuration devices

Free evaluation of IP functions through the Quartus II software's OpenCore® evaluation feature
Free software support with the Quartus II Web Edition software
Find answers to common questions about Cyclone FPGAs on the Questions & Answers page. Also, see what customers are saying about the new Cyclone FPGA family.

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