Stratix™ Devices Extend Product Lifecycles
Remote System Upgrade Capability Allows Products to Evolve with Market Demands
San Jose, Calif., February 25, 2002 -- Altera Corporation (Nasdaq: ALTR) today announced that the Remote System Upgrade (RSU) capability in the recently announced Stratix™ devices dramatically reduces development costs and enables users to extend the lifespan of their products. This capability allows product developers to remotely modify their products to upgrade their system functionality or fix bugs. An industry first, the Remote System Upgrade capability relies on dedicated circuitry in Stratix devices that both facilitates remote device configuration and guarantees correct device operation in the case of configuration errors.
"Changes in market demand and evolving specifications can obsolete a product within months, whether it is a leading-edge communications system or the set-top box for your TV," said Tim Colleran, vice president of product marketing at Altera. "With Remote System Upgrades, our customers will be able to design products that can be remotely modified to meet the changing needs of their customers. These products will be up-to-date for a much longer period of time, staving off obsolescence and increasing the return on their investment."
Remote System Upgrades support Altera's vision of the next-generation system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) solution. Using Stratix devices, product developers can begin the product design cycle earlier to get their products to market as fast as possible, maximizing their market share. These shorter development cycles are possible with an RSU-enabled system because the developer can ship a functional subset of the product today, while adding features and enhancements later through reliable real-time system upgrades.
Guaranteed Device Operation
Stratix devices include dedicated circuitry that manages the Remote System Upgrade process. This circuitry handles the transfer of data corresponding to a new device configuration from an attached network to the Stratix device. If the configuration data is corrupted due to transmission problems or other errors, the Remote System Upgrade circuitry will detect the problem and reconfigure the Stratix device into a "safe" operating mode, ensuring correct device operation. This failsafe mechanism is a first for the programmable logic industry, providing the highest degree of reliability.
About Stratix Devices
Stratix devices are based on a 1.5-V, 0.13-µm, all-layer copper SRAM process, with densities ranging from 10,570 to 114,140 logic elements (LEs) and up to 10 Mbits of RAM. Stratix devices offer up to 28 DSP blocks with up to 224 embedded multipliers, optimized for DSP applications that require high data processing. Stratix devices support various differential I/O electrical standards such as LVDS, LVPECL, PCML and HyperTransport™, as well as high-speed interfaces, including UTOPIA IV, SPI-4 Phase 2, SFI-4, 10G Ethernet XSBI, RapidIO™, HyperTransport and others. Stratix devices also offer a complete clock management solution with its hierarchical clock structure and up to 12 phase-locked loops (PLLs). More technical information about the Stratix device family is available at http://www.altera.com/stratix.
About Altera
Altera Corporation (Nasdaq: ALTR) is the world's pioneer in system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) solutions. Combining programmable logic technology with software tools, intellectual property and technical services, Altera provides high-value programmable solutions to approximately 14,000 customers worldwide. More information is available at http://www.altera.com.
Editor Contacts:
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Martin S. Won Altera Corporation (408) 544-6397 newsroom@altera.com |
