Stratix II: The Industry's Fastest 90-nm FPGA
The innovative logic structure, combined with advanced 90-nm process technology and the technology leadership of Quartus® II design software, provides Stratix® II FPGAs with a tremendous performance advantage in the FPGA industry. The latest benchmark results showed that Stratix II FPGAs are a full speed grade faster than Virtex-4 proving them to be the fastest FPGAs in the 90-nm process node.
In addition to the performance leadership, Stratix II FPGAs are also the density leader of all FPGAs, offering up to 2.2 million ASIC gates in a single device. Combining this performance and density leadership, Stratix II FPGAs provide tremendous flexibility for high-performance, feature-rich FPGA designs and are the ideal platform for ASIC prototyping.
Stratix II vs. Virtex-4 FPGA Performance Data & Analysis
The performance benchmark results shown in Figure 1 are from over 70 real customer designs, and each design is optimized for both the Stratix II and Virtex-4 fastest speed grades. The results presented are based on the best-effort performance benchmark methodology that has been endorsed by industry experts.
Figure 1. Stratix II vs. Virtex-4 Relative FPGA Core Performance Comparison
The benchmark data shows that more than 75 percent of all designs implemented in Stratix II devices are faster than in the Virtex-4 implementations. The Stratix II vs. Virtex-4 Performance Comparison white paper contains detailed discussion about the above benchmark data and results analysis. In addition, publicly available open core designs are used to further validate the density benchmark result.
Quartus II Design Software
The revolutionary ALM architecture was co-developed with Quartus II software, enabling the development tool to provide the easiest access to the Stratix II performance advantages. Quartus II software provides:
- A state-of-the-art FPGA place-and-route engine that takes full advantage of Stratix II device resources
- The industry’s only vendor-supplied physical synthesis that optimizes your design at the push of a button
- The easy-to-use design space explorer (DSE) that automatically seeks the best settings for the best performance
- The most advanced solution for achieving timing closure in high-density FPGA designs
Benchmarking Methodology
Altera has a third-party, industry-expert-endorsed performance benchmarking methodology, which is used to compare FPGA performance between both families from a single FPGA vendor and between competitive solutions. Altera ensures a consistent benchmarking environment when testing both Altera and competitor devices.
Overall Stratix II Advantage
Altera’s benchmark results indicate that the Stratix II family offers a full speed grade advantage over the Virtex-4 family, making Stratix II devices the fastest 90-nm FPGAs in the market today. The revolutionary Stratix II ALM logic structure is optimized to maximize the performance and logic efficiency of your design, and the Quartus II development platform enables easy access to Altera's leading performance. Download the no-cost Quartus II Web Edition development software, and try your design or publicly available open core designs with the industry's fastest Stratix II FPGAs today.
Developing Stratix II FPGAs
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