Cyclone III FPGAs in Video and Image Processing Applications
Cyclone® III FPGAs deliver a unique, low-power architecture with abundant memory and dedicated multipliers at a very low cost. This combination offers a great alternative to ASSPs, ASICs, or stand-alone digital signal processors for algorithmic-intensive applications such as video and image processing.
Cyclone III FPGAs give you significant advantages for a broad range of video applications, including broadcast and compression, video surveillance, and video conferencing.
Not only can using Cyclone III FPGAs improve your time to market, they can also improve performance. For example, with a reprogrammable Cyclone III FPGA, you can implement a low-cost H.264 encoder. This scalable solution supports over 16 channels in a single device with the lowest cost per channel available today, giving you the performance you need at a great value.
Figure 1. Cyclone III FPGA Stand-Alone H.264 Engine
With low-cost Cyclone III FPGAs you get the flexibility to add new features to an existing ASIC-based system. Instead of risking your product release schedule by redesigning the ASIC, you can upgrade your existing system faster and with less risk.
You can even use the Cyclone III family as a DSP coprocessor to add functions to your system with minimum engineering effort, such as:
- Filtering
- Motion estimation
- Video enhancement
- Smoothing function
Figure 2. Cyclone III FPGA and DSP Coprocessing
Get to market faster, lower your product cost, and increase your productivity over traditional design solutions with Cyclone III FPGAs. To get started, Altera offers:
| Table 2. Video and Image Processing Design Resources |
| Category |
Resource |
Description |
| Development Kit Resources |
 |
Cyclone III FPGA Starter Kit |
This FPGA Starter kit is ideal for quick "out-of-the-box" evaluation experience. For video and image processing applications, user I/O pins can be configured for LVDS, mini-LVDS, RSDS, or PPDS column driver interfaces. |
| Software and Intellectual Property Resources |
 |
Video and Image Processing IP |
Altera's VIP Suite of IP cores as well as H.264 and JPEG2000 encoders and decoders and image processing functions from a large eco-system of partner providers. |
| Memory Controllers |
Memory controller IP from Altera and partners for DDR, DDR2 and other popular external memory device interfaces. |
| Nios II Embedded Processor |
The world's most versatile processors supported by easy-to-use development tools and a portfolio of FPGA development kits. |
| VIP Post Processing Reference Design |
The video processing reference design shows how the cores provided in the Altera® VIP Suite can be used to create a complete video system. The design uses Altera's DSP Builder and SOPC Builder tools and several of the IP cores, including chroma resampler, color space converter, and scaler. |
| Video-on-Demand Resources |
 |
Design Video and Image Processing Systems Using New Low-Cost FPGAs |
15-minute executive overview on the features and benefits of Cyclone III FPGAs for typical video and image processing applications, QuickCast video format. |
| White Papers |
 |
Video and Image Processing Design Using FPGAs |
Looks at the trends in video and image processing that are forcing developers to re-examine the architectures they have used in the past to improve performance and lower costs. |
| Broadcast Video Infrastructure Implementation Using FPGAs |
Looks at trends driving broadcast video equipment needs and how to meet those needs using FPGA solutions. |
| Video Surveillance Implementation Using FPGAs |
Looks at the emerging trends in video surveillance systems and how to implement next generation systems using FPGAs to improve performance and reduce cost. |
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