For Release: January 05, 2004
Altera Enables Gibson Guitar to Spread MaGIC
Altera Products Replace Competitive FPGA and Off-the-Shelf Processor to Lower Costs of Adoption for Revolutionary Media Protocol
International Consumer Electronics Show 2004, Las Vegas, NV, January 5, 2004—Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) and Gibson Guitar announced today that Gibson has employed Altera’s Cyclone™ devices and industry-leading Nios® processor to speed adoption of a media protocol designed to solve the problem of the myriad connection standards that plague the professional audio industry. Using Altera® products to replace a microprocessor and a competitive FPGA enables Gibson to offer a compact, low-cost connection module that will increase the use of the Media-accelerated Global Information Carrier (MaGIC) protocol, advancing the state of digital audio connectivity to a new level. Developed by Gibson Labs, the MaGIC protocol has been demonstrated with the Gibson Digital Guitar, winner of the prestigious Innovations 2003 Award in the Personal Electronics category and Best in Show finalist at the 2003 Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco.
“Replacing a more expensive FPGA and microprocessor with a single Cyclone FPGA running a Nios processor enabled us to develop a smaller, lower-priced Universal MaGIC Module that allows MaGIC connectivity to be added to any instrument or piece of equipment easily and efficiently,” said Henry Juszkiewicz, Chairman and CEO of Gibson Guitar. “The availability of this simple, cost-effective means of integrating MaGIC into existing instruments and equipment will accelerate its adoption in the music industry, and potentially into video and smart home networking applications as well.”
Gibson Labs initially used an off-the-shelf processor and a non-Altera FPGA to prototype their MaGIC technology. The advent of Cyclone devices and the Nios processor allowed them to integrate the processor functionality into an Altera FPGA, reducing a two-chip solution to a single-chip solution. The reduction in board space and component count enabled Gibson to shrink their Universal Magic Module, lower its cost, and increase its reliability. Gibson now has the flexibility to add features or enhancements to the module, even while it is deployed in the field, by changing the software for the Nios processor or by reconfiguring the Cyclone device.
“Gibson’s name is synonymous with bold and elegant innovations in the music industry,” said Erik Cleage, senior vice president of marketing at Altera. “Their choice of Cyclone FPGAs and the Nios processor reflects a larger trend among industry bellwethers in the consumer marketplace towards relying on Altera products to meet the unrelenting demands for more features and high flexibility at the lowest cost. By pioneering this revolutionary technology, Gibson promises to bring widespread benefit both to industry insiders and to music lovers everywhere who will enjoy the results.”
About MaGIC
The Gibson Digital Guitar brings the 1930s technology of today’s electric guitar into the digital age opening a virtually unlimited array of musical possibilities for guitarists. The MaGIC technology developed by Gibson Labs stands for Media-accelerated Global Information Carrier and is designed to replace all wiring systems in the musical instrument field and in consumer electronics applications. MaGIC converts the analog signal into a high quality digital signal inside the guitar. Available early 2004 from Gibson USA.
About Gibson Guitar Corp
Gibson is known worldwide for producing classic models in every major style of fretted instrument, including acoustic and electric guitars, mandolins, and banjos. Gibson’s digital guitar, introduced in 2002, represents the biggest advance in electric guitar design in over 70 years. Founded in 1894 in Kalamazoo, MI, and headquartered in Nashville since 1984, Gibson Guitar Corp.’s family of brands now includes Epiphone, Dobro, Valley Arts, Kramer, Steinberger, Tobias, Slingerland, Trace Elliot, Maestro, Baldwin, Ellington, Chickering and Wurlitzer. Visit Gibson’s website at www.gibson.com.
About the Cyclone Device Family
Built from the ground up to ensure the lowest possible cost, Cyclone devices are the industry’s lowest-cost FPGAs available today. Cyclone devices are manufactured on TSMC’s advanced 0.13-micron, all-layer-copper process and were developed to provide designers of high-volume, price-sensitive applications the flexibility of an FPGA at ASIC prices. With support for leading-edge and emerging I/O standards, the Cyclone device family includes embedded RAM blocks and other features to put FPGA technology in the hands of designers developing volume-driven applications in the automotive, consumer, and computing markets. For more information about the Cyclone device family, visit www.altera.com/cyclone.
About the Nios Embedded Processor
Currently the world’s most widely licensed soft-core embedded processor, Altera’s Nios general-purpose RISC CPU can be integrated with a wide array of peripherals, custom instructions, and hardware acceleration units to create a custom system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) solution. Featuring a 16-bit instruction set and user selectable 16- or 32-bit data paths, configurable for a wide range of applications and consuming minimal device space, the Nios processor facilitates complex system designs. While royalty-free when used in Altera FPGAs and HardCopy™ devices, a royalty-based ASIC license for OEM applications is also available. For more information, visit www.altera.com/nios.
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 www.altera.com.
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