Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Fabless chipmaker Altera Corp. today said that it has moved two Cyclone devices, the EP1C6 and EP1C20 devices, from sampling to production six weeks ahead of schedule.
Cyclone devices are Altera's low-cost FPGAs with densities ranging from 2,910 to 20,060 logic elements, and up to 288Kbits of embedded memory. They are based on a 1.5V, all-copper SRAM process.
Originally planned for March, the hastened move to volume production for the EP1C6 and EP1C20 is a result of engineering accomplishments with foundry partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd.'s 0.13-micron process technology and Altera's new test methodology, the San Jose-based company said.
Altera harnessed the Internet to develop a continuous, massively parallel product test methodology, it claimed. Involving several teams in various Altera locations around the world, engineers work on different areas of testability and user check out, and hand-off from one group to another in different time zones.
Initial shipments of the Cyclone FPGAs to distributors have begun and Altera plans to stock its worldwide distribution channel with the first 25,000 units during the next two months, the company said. Production EP1C6 and EP1C20 devices are available today, while the EP1C12 and EP1C3 members of the Cyclone family are scheduled for production by March and April, respectively, the company said.
While the 185-pin EP1C6 and the 301-pin EP1C20 devices have a total RAM bits of 92,160 and 294,912, respectively, the 104-pin EP1C3 and the 249-pin EP1C12 have total RAM bits of 59,904 and 239,616, respectively.
Because of the company's packaging strategy, designers can create boards for any of the Cyclone devices and use the EP1C20 and EP1C6 devices until the EP1C3 or EP1C12 devices are available, Altera said. Prices of Cyclone device range from $4 to $40 per unit for high volumes of the EP1C3 and EP1C20 devices, respectively, the company said.
By: DocMemory
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