Altera’s New Stratix DSP Development Kit Supports Texas Instruments’ Leading DSP Platforms

Kit Enables Development of FPGA Co-Processors for TI's C5000 and C6000 DSP Development Platforms

San Jose, Calif., July 2, 2003 - Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) today announced the immediate availability of its DSP Development Kit, Stratix™ Professional Edition.  Featuring Altera's Stratix EP1S80 device, the new development kit interfaces to Texas Instruments' popular digital signal processing (DSP) development platforms to enable rapid development of extremely powerful and cost-effective FPGA co-processors.

"Altera's new DSP development kit really jump-started our design efforts," said Brian Daellenbach, president of Northwest Logic.  "The combination of a powerful DSP board and highly optimized intellectual property MegaCore® function enabled us to develop a complex prototype for an advanced high-speed satellite demodulator in just a couple of months."

The DSP Development Kit, Stratix Professional Edition, helps designers to quickly and efficiently design, integrate, and test custom system architectures for a wide range of DSP applications.  A cross-platform daughter card connector included with the kit plugs directly into Texas Instruments' high-performance TMS320C6000 and cost-efficient TMS320C5000 DSP development platforms, two of the industry's most broadly used DSP families.

"By offering development support for TI's two leading DSP platforms, the DSP Development Kit, Stratix Professional Edition, provides designers with the most powerful and complete DSP development kit available today," said Craig Lytle, vice president of Altera's IP business unit.  "DSP designers targeting applications like wireless, software defined radio, and imaging now have a complete solution for building FPGA co-processors that can eliminate processing bottlenecks."

FPGA co-processor architectures boost system performance and lower costs.  Using
Altera's fast Fourier transform (FFT) compiler, for example, users can implement a 1K-point, 16-bit FFT co-processor with a transform time of less than 23 microseconds using less than 15 percent of the smallest Stratix device for an effective cost of less than $8.  Designers can enjoy further cost benefits by targeting their designs at the HardCopy™ Stratix device family, Altera's low-cost mask-programmed devices that preserve the architecture and features of their equivalent high-density FPGAs.  HardCopy™ devices are 60 to 70 percent smaller in die size than the original FPGA, enabling Altera to provide customers with a lower-cost, higher-performance, and lower-power consuming device.  Designers can also implement DSP functions on Altera's low-cost Cyclone™ FPGA family.  With Altera's finite impulse response (FIR) compiler, for example, users can implement a 25-tap, 200 MSPS (millions of samples per second), 16-bit FIR co-processor in the smallest Cyclone device for an effective cost of $4.  For more information about Altera's DSP IP cores, please visit the IP MegaStore™ web site at www.altera.com/ipmegastore.

To facilitate development of FPGA co-processors, the DSP Development Kit, Stratix Professional Edition provides hardware evaluation versions of key DSP intellectual property, including a FIR compiler, infinite impulse response (IIR) filter compiler, and correlator, FFT, Viterbi, and Reed Solomon cores.

Features  

The DSP Development Kit, Stratix Professional Edition, includes Altera's DSP Builder interface with The MathWorks' MATLAB/Simulink DSP development software, Quartus® II design software, and powerful reference designs.  Reference designs include:

• 8-Channel UMTS Digital Downconverter
  www.altera.com/products/ip/dsp/m-alt-ref_dsp_stratix_ddc.html
• Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum Design targeting 3G and SDR specifications  www.altera.com/products/ip/dsp/m-alt-ref_dsp_stratix_dsss.html
• DSP Builder Reference Designs
  www.altera.com/products/ip/dsp/m-alt-ref_dsp_stratix_qpsk.html

The DSP Development Kit, Stratix Professional Edition, features a development board with a Stratix EP1S80 device, two 12-bit, 125-MHz A/D converters, two 14-bit, 165-MHz D/A converters, 64 Mbits of flash memory, 2 Mbytes of synchronous SRAM, and a connector to Analog Devices' A/D evaluation boards.

The DSP Development Kit, Stratix Professional Edition, is part of Altera's Code:DSP initiative to extend the reach of FPGAs into a wide range of mainstream DSP-based applications.  Highlighted by the industry's most advanced design flow supporting system design, hardware design, and software design, the Code:DSP initiative sharpens Altera's focus on the DSP market by offering designers a broad range of support services, tools, and development platforms for implementing reconfigurable DSP designs in leading-edge FPGAs.

Pricing and Availability

The DSP Development Kit, Stratix Professional Edition, (ordering code: DSP-BOARD/S80) is available today and priced at $4,995.  For more information about the kit, please visit www.altera.com/products/devkits/altera/kit-dsp_stratix_pro.html. 

About the Stratix Device Family

The Stratix device family is the industry's first family of production-qualified FPGAs built on a 0.13-micron, all-layer copper process and the winner of EDN magazine's 2002 Digital IC Innovation Award.  Featuring embedded DSP blocks, embedded RAM blocks, and support for emerging I/O standards, Stratix devices give designers the performance and densities they need to meet the challenges of high-bandwidth system design.  For more information about the Stratix device family, visit www.altera.com/stratix.

About Altera

Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) is the world's pioneer in system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) solutions.  Combining programmable logic technology with software tools, intellectual property, and technical services, Altera provides high-value programmable solutions to approximately 14,000 customers worldwide. More information is available at www.altera.com.

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