Altera tested 25 open core designs (obtained from www.opencores.org) to benchmark Stratix® II and Virtex-4 FPGA performance. Results showed that Stratix II FPGAs are a full speed grade faster than Virtex-4, proving Stratix II devices to be the fastest FPGAs in the 90-nm process node.
Open Core Benchmark Details
The 25 open core designs were selected based on their popularity, and they are all written in generic hardware description languages (HDLs). Designs were synthesized using Synplify Pro software version 8.0 and compiled using Quartus® II software version 5.0 or ISE software version 7.1i service pack 1. Similar to the customer design benchmark, the open core designs use the fastest speed grade devices available in each software and are compiled for maximum performance.
To provide a fair comparison, no manual optimization of the design code was done, except for getting the designs to compile and making the RAM modules to target both FPGA architectures. Figure 1 shows the results of the open core performance benchmark.
Figure 1. Stratix II vs. Virtex-4 FPGA Open Core Performance Benchmark
The open core performance benchmark results shows that, on average, Stratix II FPGAs are one speed grade faster than Virtex-4 devices. This is the same as the result obtained through the customer design benchmark.
Run Your Own Performance Benchmark
It's easy to run your own performance comparisons by using the publicly available open core designs.
For Stratix II FPGAs, use the Quartus II performance optimization settings shown in Table 1. Make sure to set timing constraints for each clock. For open core performance benchmarks, each clock is set to 1 GHz (in normal practice you should set the clock constraints to your actual needs for best results).
More details on benchmark settings and performance optimizations are available in the Three Steps to Higher Performance page.
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Table 1. Quartus II Performance Optimization Options |
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|
Options |
Setting |
|---|---|
|
Analysis & Synthesis Settings—Optimization Technique |
Speed |
|
Design Space Explore Advanced Search—Exploration Space |
Physical Synthesis |
|
Design Space Explore Advanced Search—Optimization Goal |
Optimize for Speed |
|
Design Space Explore Advanced Search—Search Method |
Accelerated Search of Exploration Space |
| Table 2. Learn More about Stratix II FPGAs | |
| Topic |
Description |
| Performance Comparison | Compare Stratix II Performance with Competing Devices |
| Logic | FPGA Architecture White Paper |
| 8-Input Fracturable LUT in the ALM | |
| Design Building Blocks | |
| Embedded Adders | |
| Achieving More Performance | 3 Steps to Higher Performance |
| DSP | DSP Blocks |
| DSP Performance Center | |
| Benchmarking | Benchmarking Methodology White Paper |
| Benchmarking Methodology | |
