Altera Announces Quartus II Design Software Version 7.0 With Support for Cyclone III FPGAs

Web Edition Offers Free Design Support for Industry’s Highest-Density Low-Cost FPGAs
Beijing, March 20, 2007—Altera Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR) today introduced Quartus II software version 7.0 with support for the entire 65-nm Cyclone? III FPGA family in both its Subscription Edition and free Web Edition. The Cyclone III support within Web Edition marks the highest device density available within any FPGA vendor’s free software package. The advanced technology and productivity features in Quartus II software allow designers to exploit the full potential of the Cyclone III family and achieve 50 percent lower power consumption, compared to the previous generation family, and three speed grades faster than the nearest low-cost FPGA competitor.
“Designers around the world have access to free Quartus II Web Edition software, enabling them to design FPGA densities up to four times greater than any competing free software,” said Louie Leung, Altera Asia Pacific Marketing Director. “Our easy-to-use Quartus II software, together with low-cost Cyclone III FPGAs, addresses designs ranging from 5K to 120K logic elements (LEs), expanding programmable logic into a wider array of cost-sensitive applications.”

Performance and Power Advantages
Cyclone III FPGAs offer an unprecedented combination of low power, high functionality, and low cost (www.altera.com/corporate/news_room/releases/products/nr-cycloneiii.html ). Quartus II software version 7.0 and Cyclone III FPGAs show a performance advantage of three speed grades compared to the nearest competing low-cost FPGA (see the performance benchmarking methodology described at www.altera.com/literature/wp/wpfpgabm.pdf). Additionally, Quartus II software’s PowerPlay power analysis and optimization technology along with recent silicon process innovations in the Cyclone III family achieve a 50 percent power reduction compared to the previous generation.

Quartus II software version 7.0 provides industry-leading performance and productivity features to support the new Cyclone III family, including the EP3C120 device with 120,000 LEs, 4 Mbits of memory and 288 multipliers—the highest-device density available in any FPGA vendor’s free software package. These features include TimeQuest timing analyzer for easy and quick timing closure, incremental compilation for fast compile times and team-based design, PowerPlay power analysis and optimization tools for minimal power consumption, and SOPC Builder and DSP Builder tools for system-level design.

A variety of information and online and instructor-led training is available for customers wanting to learn more about Quartus II software and its productivity-enhancing features. For access to free Quartus II online training, visit www.altera.com/quartusdemos. For information about Quartus II instructor-led training classes, visit https://mysupport.altera.com/etraining/. For more information about Quartus II software, visit www.altera.com/quartus2. For more information about Cyclone III FPGAs, visit www.altera.com/cyclone3.

Pricing and Availability
Both the Subscription Edition and the Web Edition of Quartus II software version 7.0 are now available. The Subscription Edition is shipping to all customers with an active software subscription. The free Quartus II Web Edition software can be downloaded at www.altera.com/q2webedition. Altera’s software subscription program simplifies the process of obtaining Altera design software by consolidating software products and maintenance charges into one annual subscription payment. Subscribers receive Quartus II software, the ModelSim?-Altera Edition and a full license to the IP Base Suite, which includes ten of Altera’s most popular intellectual property (DSP and memory) cores. The annual software subscription is $2,000 for a node-locked PC license. Quartus II design software supports major operating systems, including Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64, Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows 2000, UNIX (Solaris 8 and 9), Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 and 4.0, and SUSE Enterprise Linux 9.