Remote System Upgrades with Stratix II FPGAs
To continue providing the flexibility of real-time system upgrades from remote locations, the Stratix™ II FPGA family offers the same remote system upgrade features as in Stratix devices. Stratix II devices allow remote system upgrades to be transmitted over any communications network, keeping products ahead of the competition, and also feature the dedicated recovery circuitry to ensure reliable updates.
Extended Marketplace Advantage
Because of increasing competition and shrinking market windows, products must be the best in the market both today and in the future. Using FPGAs significantly enhances design flexibility and reduces time-to-market. A system with the added benefit of remote system upgrade capability can extend its life cycle and, ultimately, increase revenue generation. Stratix II FPGAs provide these advantages, as shown in Figure 1. Stratix II devices allow designers to design and ship functional subsets of their systems now, and provide the ability to add features and enhancements at a later date from any remote location. Using Stratix II devices, designers can start the product design cycle earlier and get products to market faster with the assurance that they can be easily upgraded in the future. For added reliability, Stratix II devices also feature on-chip recovery circuitry to ensure that systems can be upgraded correctly.
Figure 1. Remote System Upgrade Time- & Revenue-Related Benefits
Ability for Systems to Evolve
Stratix II devices provide the ability to easily evolve systems in accordance with changing market demands. A Stratix II device-developed system can be upgraded when:
- Additional protocol support is required to ensure compatibility with future products
- Enhancements or bug fixes are necessary
Hardware systems that use Stratix II FPGAs can stave off premature obsolescence because they can support evolving standards and applications that were not known at the time of equipment deployment. Stratix II devices are an ideal solution for half-generation system upgrades, with no need to deploy new equipment with every system upgrade (see Figure 2). These easy upgrades dramatically reduce costs and significantly extend product revenue streams.
Figure 2. Future System Updates Can be Performed Remotely
Custom-Built Circuitry
Stratix II FPGAs feature dedicated recovery circuitry for remote system upgrades. Dedicated circuitry ensures that whenever an error occurs, whether during data transmission or device configuration, the Stratix II device will always return to a known state to operate correctly, guaranteeing "always operational" functionality. Information about the error will also be available to the controller.
Remote system upgrades are enabled using Stratix II devices and flash memory. As shown in Figure 3, a user can perform a remote system upgrade in three simple steps:
Figure 3. Remote Upgrade Systems with a Stratix II Device in Three Steps
- Send an update from the development location through a network to the Stratix II device.
- Store the update in the memory.
- Update the Stratix II device with the new data.
The Altera Advantage
With remote system upgrades, Stratix II FPGAs take systems to the forefront of technology faster, and keep them ahead of the competition longer. Stratix II devices provide significant time-to-market benefits for the fastest possible system design and deployment, all with the ease and assurance of performing upgrades at a later time. New features and support for evolving protocols can be easily updated, while system performance can increase over time with design optimization.
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