Altera’s Stratix® II FPGAs are based on the same industry-preferred feature set as Stratix devices, with many key enhancements. Stratix II devices have an innovative logic structure that offers higher performance and higher density at a lower cost than comparable FPGAs. With up to 180K equivalent logic elements (LEs), Stratix II devices offer more than twice the capacity of Stratix devices. Stratix II devices contain powerful system-level features that offer unprecedented design flexibility and high-performance system integration, as shown in Table 1.
| Table 1. Stratix II Features at a Glance | |
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Architecture Performance and Efficiency | |
| Industry's Biggest FPGA | Built on 90-nm technology, Stratix II FPGAs provide unparalleled density and logic efficiency. Stratix II devices offer 5 percent more logic, 50 percent more memory, 4 times more digital signal processing (DSP) resources and 21 percent more user I/Os than competing FPGAs. Stratix II devices are well suited for ASIC prototyping applications where verification of a design prior to ASIC tape-out is vital. |
| Innovative Logic Structure | Stratix II FPGAs are the product of an innovative logic architecture that achieves on average 50 percent faster performance with 25 percent reduced logic utilization compared to previous product families. |
| Differences Between Stratix II and Stratix Devices | The Stratix II architecture, the industry's fastest FPGA architecture, offers advanced features based upon the highly successful Stratix architecture, with additional capabilities such as new logic structure, source-synchronous signaling with dynamic phase alignment (DPA) circuitry, and design security with configuration bitstream encryption technology. |
| Source-Synchronous Signaling, High I/O Bandwidth, and High-Speed Interfaces | |
| Source-Synchronous Signaling I/O Standards in Stratix II Devices | Stratix II devices offer 152 receiver and 156 transmitter channels that support source-synchronous signaling for data transfer rates as high as 1 Gbps. |
| Stratix II DPA | Stratix II devices feature embedded DPA circuitry that simplifies PCB layout by eliminating signal alignment issues arising from skew-inducing effects when transmitting signals using source-synchronous signaling techniques over long distances. |
| Differential I/O Support | Stratix II FPGAs offer high-speed differential I/O support for data rates up to 1 Gbps and address the high-performance needs of emerging I/O interfaces, including support for the LVDS, LVPECL, and HyperTransport™ standards. |
| Single-Ended I/O Standards in Stratix II Devices | Stratix II devices support high-bandwidth, single-ended I/O interface standards (SSTL, HSTL, PCI, and PCI-X) needed for today’s demanding system requirements. |
| Source-Synchronous Protocols | Stratix II devices support a wide array of high-speed interface standards (SPI-4.2, SFI-4, 10 Gigabit Ethernet XSBI, HyperTransport, RapidIO®, NPSI, and UTOPIA IV) for flexibility and fast time-to-market. |
| Design Security | |
| Design Security in Stratix II Devices | Stratix II devices support design security with configuration bitstream encryption using the 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm. |
| High Memory Bandwidth and High-Speed External Memory Device Interfaces | |
| TriMatrix Memory in Stratix II Devices | TriMatrix memory in Stratix II FPGAs offers up to 9 Mbits of RAM. This advanced 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 features. |
| External Memory Interfaces in Stratix II Devices | Stratix II 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. |
| High-Performance DSP | |
| Stratix II DSP Blocks | Stratix II devices include high-performance embedded DSP blocks, capable of running at 450 MHz, optimized for DSP applications. The DSP blocks eliminate performance bottlenecks in computationally intensive applications, provide predictable and reliable performance, and result in resource savings without compromising performance. |
| DSP Performance in Stratix II Devices | Stratix II devices offer higher data processing capacity than DSP processors for maximum system performance. |
| Soft Multipliers in Stratix II Devices | Stratix II devices provide a flexible implementation of soft multipliers that can be configured for different data width and latency. The soft multipliers provide very high DSP throughput in addition to the DSP blocks. |
| System Clock Management | |
| Stratix II Clock Management Circuitry | Each Stratix II device has up to 16 high-performance, low-skew global clocks that can be used for clocking high-performance functions or global control signals. Additionally, eight localized (regional) clocks per region increase the total number of clocks for any region to 24. This web of high-speed clock networks, which are tightly coupled with the abundant PLLs, ensures that the most complex design can run at optimal performance and with minimum clocking skew. |
| Stratix II Clock Management Features | Stratix II devices feature up to 12 programmable PLLs, providing robust clock management and frequency synthesis capabilities for maximum system performance. The PLLs provide high-end features, including clock switchover, PLL reconfiguration, spread-spectrum clocking, frequency synthesis, programmable phase shift, programmable delay shift, external feedback, and programmable bandwidth. These features allow designers to manage system timing on and off the Stratix II device. |
| On-Chip Termination | |
| On-Chip Termination in Stratix II Devices | Stratix II devices feature series and differential 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 With Stratix II FPGAs | Stratix II devices feature remote system upgrade capability, allowing error-free deployment of system upgrades from a remote location securely and reliably. |
| Automatic Cyclic Redundancy Code (CRC) Checking | |
| CRC | Stratix II devices feature automatic 32-bit CRC checking. A single click in Quartus® II 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 Soft Embedded Core Processor | |
| Stratix II Devices & Nios® II Processors | The advanced architectural features of Stratix II devices combined with the Nios II family of embedded processors offer unparalleled processing power to meet the needs of network, telecommunications, DSP applications, mass storage, and other high-bandwidth systems. Stratix II devices improve overall system performance of the latest Nios II processors. |
| Low-Cost Volume Production Devices | |
| HardCopy® II Devices | The award-winning HardCopy series has been extended to support migration from Stratix II FPGAs to HardCopy II ASICs. Providing guaranteed operation and industry-standard tool flow support, HardCopy II ASICs provide the most complete ASIC solution in the industry. |
