Built on the Altera® Stratix® architecture, Stratix GX devices fuse the industry's fastest FPGA architecture with high-performance, multi-gigabit transceivers that meet the high-bandwidth needs of today's demanding systems.
Stratix GX devices feature up to 20 full-duplex high-speed transceiver channels that operate at up to 3.125 Gbps. Low-power transceiver channels on Stratix GX devices dissipate a mere 450 mW per quad or 175 mW for a single channel. The transmitter has dynamically selectable drive strength and pre-emphasis, while the receiver has dynamically selectable equalization.
Stratix GX devices also feature embedded dynamic phase alignment (DPA) circuitry to align up to 45 differential source-synchronous parallel channels. Dedicated DPA circuitry on each channel eases the stringent printed circuit board (PCB) design rules associated with high-speed design such as clock-to-channel skew and channel-to-channel skew. Stratix GX FPGAs have two DPA banks that operate up to 1 Gbps.
Table 1 highlights several Stratix GX device features.
| Table 1. Stratix GX Features at a Glance | |
|---|---|
| Feature | Description |
| Transceiver Technology | |
| Multi-Gigabit Transceiver Block Technical Details | With up to 20 full-duplex channels at up to 3.125 Gbps per channel, Stratix GX devices address the needs of high-speed backplane and chip-to-chip applications, communication, digital broadcast, test equipment, and mass storage systems. |
| The SerialLite protocol was designed as a lightweight, point-to-point protocol aimed at providing a small footprint, low latency, and low overhead. Designers using SerialLite in Stratix GX devices have a low-risk path for implementing serial I/O standards in their applications. | |
| Transceiver Protocols | Stratix GX channels can be configured to support a wide array of high-speed interface protocols including SerialLite; 10 Gigabit Ethernet (XAUI); SONET/SDH; Gigabit Ethernet; 1G, 2G, and 10-Gbps Fibre Channel; serial RapidIO™; SMPTE 292M, and PCI Express standards. |
| Source-Synchronous Signaling | |
| Source-Synchronous Differential Channel Technical Details | Stratix GX devices offer up to 45 receiver and 45 transmitter source-synchronous channels that support data transfer rates of up to 1 Gbps and the DPA circuitry. These channels also support various advanced I/O standards such as LVDS, LVPECL, PCML, and the HyperTransport™ technology. |
| Dynamic Phase Alignment (DPA) | Stratix GX devices feature embedded DPA circuitry that simplifies PCB layout by eliminating signal alignment issues introduced by skew-inducing effects when using source-synchronous signaling techniques. |
| Source-Synchronous Protocols | Stratix GX source-synchronous channels support a wide array of high-speed interface protocols, such as 10 Gigabit Ethernet (XSBI), POS-PHY Level 4 (SPI-4 Phase 2), SFI-4, HyperTransport interfaces, the RapidIO standard, and UTOPIA IV. |
| System Packet Interface Level 4 (SPI-4) Phase 2 | Stratix GX devices are the first FPGAs with embedded DPA circuitry supporting data transfer rates as high as 1 Gbps. The SPI-4.2-compliant POS-PHY Level 4 MegaCore® function integrates this circuitry and offers a broad range of configuration options, allowing designers to customize the core to meet the specific requirements of their system. |
| System Applications | |
| Stratix GX Applications | Stratix GX devices are ideal for both high-speed communication over the backplane and chip-to-chip applications in many markets including communications, digital broadcast, and storage systems. |
| Bridging Applications | Stratix GX devices provide the ideal solution to bridge various high-speed communications protocols and fully accommodate value-added custom functions. |
| Switch Fabric Applications | With up to twenty 3.125-Gbps channels, a high-performance programmable logic array, and TriMatrix™ memory, Stratix GX devices are a flexible switch fabric solution that is unparalleled in the FPGA market. |
| Base-Station Transceiver Applications | The high-performance digital signal processing (DSP) blocks, TriMatrix memory blocks and high-performance I/O circuitry, combined with the programmable fabric of the Stratix GX devices provide an optimal solution for basestation transceiver cards. |
| HDTV Video Production Applications | With support for the HD-SDI standard and multiple transceiver channels, Stratix GX devices offer a flexible solution for HDTV video production applications. |
| Storage Applications | Stratix GX devices provide up to 20 transceiver channels, enabling designers to use a flexible and integrated solution in their storage systems. |
| High-Performance Architecture | |
| High-Performance Architecture | The Stratix GX architecture contains high-performance logic elements, TriMatrix memory, DSP blocks, phase-locked loops (PLLs), gigabit transceiver blocks, and DPA circuitry addressing growing bandwidth requirements and maximizing system performance. |
| MultiTrack™ Interconnect | Stratix GX devices have a continuous interconnect that consists of lines of varying lengths to accelerate system performance. |
| DirectDrive™ Technology | Stratix GX devices have a uniform, deterministic routing structure that enables block-based design and consistent performance across the entire device. |
| Differences Between Stratix & Stratix GX Devices | Stratix GX devices are based upon the high-performance Stratix architecture, with additional features such as dedicated high-speed gigabit transceiver blocks and source-synchronous signaling with DPA circuitry. |
| High Memory Bandwidth & High-Speed External Memory Interfaces | |
| TriMatrix Memory | TriMatrix memory offers up to 3.4 Mbits of RAM and 4 terabits per second of device memory bandwidth. This complex memory structure includes three sizes of embedded RAM blocks—M512, M4K, and M-RAM blocks—that can be configured to support a wide range of applications. |
| External Memory Interfaces | Stratix GX devices provide advanced external memory interfaces, allowing designers to integrate external high-density SRAM and DRAM devices into complex system designs without degrading data access performance. |
| SRAM Devices | Stratix GX devices support interfaces with four types of SRAM devices—double data rate (DDR), quad data rate (QDR), QDRII, and zero-bus turnaround (ZBT)—at up to 668 Mbps. |
| DRAM Devices | Stratix GX devices support interfaces with three types of high-speed synchronous DRAM (SDRAM) devices—single data rate (SDR SDRAM), DDR SDRAM, and fast-cycle (FCRAM)—with up to a 400 Mbps data rate. |
| High-Performance Digital Signal Processing | |
| DSP Blocks | The DSP blocks are high-performance embedded DSP units that are optimized for DSP applications. The DSP blocks eliminate performance bottlenecks in DSP applications, provide predictable and reliable performance, and result in resource savings without compromising performance. |
| High I/O Bandwidth | |
| Differential I/O Support | The source-synchronous circuitry in Stratix GX devices supports the LVDS, LVPECL, 3.3-V PCML, and HyperTransport differential I/O standards. |
| Single-Ended I/O Support | Stratix GX devices support high-bandwidth single-ended I/O interface standards, such as SSTL, HSTL, GTL, GTL+, CTT, and PCI-X, needed for today's demanding system requirements. |
| On-Chip Hot-Socketing & Power-Sequencing Support | |
| Hot Socketing & Power Sequencing | Stratix GX devices offer robust on-chip hot-socketing and power-sequencing support that ensures proper device operation independent of the power-up sequence. This feature also protects the device and tri-states both the high-speed serial transceivers and regular I/O buffers before and during power-up, making Stratix GX devices ideal for multi-voltage systems as well as applications that require high availability and redundancy. |
| On-Chip Termination | |
| On-Chip Termination | Stratix GX devices feature differential on-chip termination and transceiver on-chip termination that can simplify board layout by minimizing the number of external resistors needed on the PCB. |
| Remote System Upgrade Capabilities | |
| Remote System Upgrades | Stratix GX devices feature remote system upgrade capability, allowing error-free deployment of system upgrades from a remote location in a secure and reliable manner. |
| Automatic Cyclic Redundancy Code (CRC) Checking | |
| CRC | Stratix GX devices feature automatic 32-bit CRC checking. A single click in Quartus® II version 4.1 software simplifies setup and activates the device's built-in CRC checker. It is the most cost-effective FPGA solution available for single event upset (SEU). |
| Embedded Processors | |
| Nios® II Family of Embedded Processors | The advanced architectural features of Stratix GX devices combined with the Nios II embedded processor cores offer unparalleled processing power to meet the needs of network, telecommunications, DSP applications, mass storage, and other high-bandwidth systems. Using the high-performance Nios II core, performance of over 150 DMIPS can be achieved on Stratix GX devices. |
