Automotive-Grade Devices
Altera is unique among semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) suppliers for its combination of automotive-grade devices, solutions, and development kits. Altera automotive-grade devices are specifically made for the automotive industry, featuring temperature range support from -40ºC to +125ºC (junction) [-40ºC to +130ºC (junction) for MAX® 7000AE CPLDs] and best-in-class automotive quality. Altera's automotive-grade devices meet or exceed ISO 9001:2001 and AEC-Q100 standards. All Altera® automotive-grade devices are manufactured at fully TS-16949-registered/certified sites and support Production Part Approval Process (PPAP) documentation.
Altera’s automotive-grade devices are manufactured using some of the programmable logic industry’s smallest, highest reliability, and mainstream semiconductor fabrication processes [0.18-µm, non-volatile CMOS flash (MAX II CPLDs) and 0.65-nm CMOS SRAM (Cyclone® III FPGAs)]. Automotive OEMs benefit from advanced fabrication processes since smaller die sizes mean higher reliability and lower costs.
Altera is the only programmable logic supplier offering automotive-grade devices in the CPLD, FPGA, and ASIC semiconductor IC categories (see Table 1). These devices are perfectly suited for high-temperature environments such as automotive telematics, infotainment, and driver assistance systems, as well as next-generation hybrid engine control units.
| Table 1. Altera’s Automotive Grade Product Families |
| Category |
Product Family Name |
Description |
| IC, CPLD |
MAX 7000AE |
High-performance, glue logic CPLDs (5.0-V I/O compatible) |
| IC, CPLD |
MAX II |
High-density, low-power glue logic CPLDs |
| IC, FPGA |
Cyclone |
Low-cost, glue logic FPGAs |
| IC, FPGA |
Cyclone II |
Low-cost, feature-rich FPGAs |
| IC, FPGA |
Cyclone III |
Low-cost, low-power, feature-rich FPGAs |
| IC, ASIC (1) |
HardCopy® II |
Low-cost, one-million-gate ASICs |
Note:
- Automotive OEMs benefit from the unique combination of FPGA prototyping and optional migration to a 90-nm automotive-grade ASIC.
As automotive electronics continue to rapidly add more functionality and features, Altera's FPGAs, CPLDs, and ASICs offer many benefits over other ASSP or ASIC solutions. These benefits include lower overall development costs, shorter development times, and the ability to leverage a single chip solution over a wide range of product offerings. Most importantly, Altera products mitigate the risk of obsolescence, which is critical in the automotive industry.
Altera’s automotive solutions include a variety of reference designs (some include full GUI and OS support), simple design examples, development kits (see Table 2), intellectual property (IP) cores (including Nios® II, 32-bit embedded processors, controller area network (CAN), media oriented system transport (MOST), FlexRay, a wide variety of digital signal processing (DSP)/video/image processing building blocks, and more), all supported by a single, integrated, and low-cost design flow through Quartus® II software.
| Table 2. Development Kits for Automotive |
| Name |
Price |
Vendor |
Featured Altera Technology |
Description |
| Paris |
as low as €4666,- |
TRS-STAR/Gleichman |
Stratix® II FPGAs (optional HardCopy II ASICs) (1) |
Scalable microcontroller platform for automotive. Infotainment reference architecture for head-end units, driver assistance, and navigation systems. |
| Nios Embedded Evaluation Kit |
$449 |
Altera |
Cyclone III FPGA and Nios II processor |
Low-cost evaluation platform including embedded software development suite, software tutorials, and application examples (Picture Viewer, Web Server, C-to-Hardware (C2H) acceleration compiler, and graphics). |
| Pablo |
Contact Vendor |
Sasco/Arrow |
Cyclone II FPGAs and Nios II processor |
TFT graphic controller board, IP bundle, with optional add-on cards. |
| MAX II Micro Kit |
$49 |
Terasic |
MAX II CPLDs |
Low-cost CPLD development kit plugs into the USB port of your PC. |
Notes:
- You can also port the design from Stratix II FPGAs to Cyclone III FPGAs via Altera’s Quartus II software.
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