Altera Ships Arria II GX FPGAs: High-Performance, Low-Cost Transceiver FPGAs for 3-Gbps Applications

Altera Shipping Second 40-nm Transceiver FPGA Family
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(Business Wire)--
Delivering a unique low-power, low-cost and high-performance FPGA solution for
3-Gbps applications, Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) today announced it has
started shipping Arria® II GX devices, its second family of 40-nm FPGAs. The
Arria II GX family with integrated transceivers joins Stratix® IV GX and Stratix
IV GT FPGAs and HardCopy® IV GX ASICs to extend the industry`s broadest
portfolio of transceiver FPGA and ASIC solutions.

Arria II GX FPGAs are the ideal devices for 3-Gbps transceiver applications
requiring low-cost FPGAs with high-end capabilities. They offer 25 percent
higher performance, up to 50 percent lower price and up to 50 percent lower
power, compared to competitive high-end FPGAs. Arria II GX FPGAs are targeted
for applications using mainstream protocols such as PCI Express (PCIe) and
Gigabit Ethernet (GbE). The devices have up to 16 3.75-Gbps transceivers, 256K
logic elements (LEs) and 8.5 Mbits of internal RAM. In addition, the Arria II GX
FPGAs also support targeted protocols such as CPRI, GPON, XAUI and triple-speed
SDI.

"The trend towards high-speed serial interfaces is being driven by our
increasing demand for information across varied markets and the designers need
for higher bandwidth at lower cost and lower power. The Arria II GX FPGAs with
integrated programmable transceivers offer best-in-class signal integrity that
provides the flexibility to accelerate product development, while consuming less
power than competing solutions," said Luanne Schirrmeister, senior director of
component product marketing at Altera Corporation.

The low power of Arria II GX FPGAs reduces the cost of thermal management in end
equipment by decreasing the number of fans and heatsinks required compared to
competing high-end devices. This enables customers to use programmable logic in
thermally constrained environments such as smaller enclosures with limited
cooling options. Additionally, the low cost of Arria II GX devices enables
system designers to utilize industry-leading programmable logic and transceiver
technology in their product designs, allowing product differentiation with
customized hardware and increased integration.

Arria II GX FPGAs offer a high-speed logic fabric based on Altera's advanced
logic module (ALM) architecture-the same as in Stratix IV FPGAs-making them
faster than competing high-performance FPGAs. They also offer higher memory- and
multiplier-to-logic ratios than competing low-cost FPGAs. These additional
memory and multiplier resources are especially important to 3-Gbps applications
in the wireless, wireline, broadcast and military markets that utilize
high-speed digital signal processing (DSP) and data processing operations.

Arria II GX devices are supported in Quartus® II design software version 9.0. In
addition, Altera is making available three reference designs, a development kit
and four design examples to accelerate the development of solutions using Arria
II GX FPGAs. For detailed information on these new devices, see
www.altera.com/pr/arriaiigxship.

Pricing and Availability

The Arria II GX EP2AGX125 device is shipping now, with production devices
scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year. Pricing for the smallest Arria II
GX device, the EP2AGX20, starts as low as $15 for 100K unit quantities in 2010,
which is up to 50 percent lower price than competing high-performance FPGAs.
Contact your Altera sales representative for pricing.

About Altera

Altera® programmable solutions enable system and semiconductor companies to
rapidly and cost-effectively innovate, differentiate and win in their markets.
Find out more about Altera's FPGA, CPLD and ASIC devices at www.altera.com. To
subscribe to Altera's RSS/XML news feeds, visit Altera RSS Feeds.

Altera, The Programmable Solutions Company, the stylized Altera logo, specific
device designations and all other words that are identified as trademarks and/or
service marks are, unless noted otherwise, the trademarks and service marks of
Altera Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.

Altera Corporation
Jim Adams, 408-544-6397
newsroom@altera.com

Copyright Business Wire 2009