This page is the third of three pages that describe the high-performance Stratix® II FPGA development process:
- Step 1: Defining Stratix II Logic Structure
- Step 2: Designing Stratix II Adaptive Logic Module
- Step 3: Delivering tomorrow's performance today with Stratix II FPGAs
The exhaustive defining and designing efforts of the Stratix® II FPGA's adaptive logic module (ALM) based on real customers' requirements produced the highest-performance FPGA architecture in the industry. Recent benchmarks and analysis prove that when designing with industry-leading Quartus® II design software, the Stratix II FPGA family is the performance leader. (See Figure 1 and Table 1 for details.)
Figure 1. Relative FPGA Core Performance Comparison

| Table 1. Stratix II Performance Score Card | ||
| Availability | Xilinx Devices | Altera Devices |
|---|---|---|
| Today | Virtex-5 FPGAs (Slow) Virtex-4 FPGAs (Fast) |
Stratix II FPGAs
|
| Future | Virtex-5 FPGAs (Medium)
Virtex-5 FPGAs (Fast)
|
Stratix III FPGAs (65-nm)
|
Benefits of Stratix II FPGA's High Performance
- Faster timing closure easily meeting your design’s performance requirements
- Reduction in cost by using a slower speed-grade device while still meeting performance goals
- Risk free design implementation due to process maturity and extra system level margins
- Implementation of new high-performance features in your system that are unachievable using competitive devices
Benchmarking Methodology
Altera has a third-party, industry-expert-endorsed performance benchmarking methodology, which is used to compare FPGA performance between both families from a single FPGA vendor and between competitive solutions. Altera ensures a consistent benchmarking environment when testing both Altera and competitor devices.
| Table 2. Learn More about Stratix II FPGAs | |
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| Performance Comparison | Stratix II vs. Virtex-5 Customer Design Benchmark |
| Stratix II vs. Virtex-5 Open Core Benchmark | |
| Stratix II vs Virtex-4 | |
| Architecture | FPGA Architecture White Paper (PDF) |
| Stratix II vs. Virtex-5 Logic Efficiency | |
| Achieving More Performance | 3 Steps to Higher Performance |
| DSP | DSP Blocks |
| DSP Performance Center | |
| Benchmarking | Benchmarking Methodology White Paper (PDF) |
| Benchmarking Methodology | |



