Altera Cyclone V GT FPGA Is Industry’s First Low-Power FPGA to Achieve Compliance for PCIe Gen2 at 5 Gbps

The Cyclone V GT FPGA successfully passed all PCI-SIG® compliance and interoperability tests at the most recent PCI-SIG workshop and is currently included on the PCI-SIG Integrators List. Cyclone V GT FPGAs provide developers a significant reduction in system costs and system power when developing PCIe Gen2-based applications compared to previously available FPGAs.

“Achieving PCIe Gen2 compliance with our Cyclone V GT FPGA marks another milestone in the successful rollout of our 28 nm Cyclone V FPGA family,” said Sabrina Raza, senior product marketing manager at Altera. “Customers who need the system performance offered by PCIe Gen2 now have the ability to use a low-power FPGA and lower their total system costs. Leveraging our expertise in transceiver technology and our proficiency in developing PCIe design solutions, we allow customers to save a significant amount in system costs while not trading off on performance.”

Cyclone V FPGAs feature integrated transceivers with data rates up to 5 Gbps and have two hardened PCIe IP blocks embedded within the device. The PCIe hard IP blocks enable developers to increase system performance and system functionality while boosting design team productivity. The PCIe 2.0-compliant hard IP blocks consists of the PHY/MAC, data link and transaction layers. The blocks can be configured to function as an end point or a root port and supports up to x4 lanes.

Cyclone V FPGAs and Cyclone V SoCs have an innovative multifunction support feature that allows up to eight PCIe end points to be combined into a single end point while still being supported by standard device drivers. This convenient feature benefits applications such as I/O expansion by reducing software driver development time. The Cyclone V FPGA and Cyclone V SoC are also equipped with Altera’s innovative Configuration via Protocol using PCIe, which allows the hard PCIe core in the devices to operate without the FPGA fabric being loaded. This ensures the PCIe end point is ready for enumeration under the PCIe protocol’s required 100ms specification regardless of the configuration method being used.

Altera offers a full spectrum of PCI-SIG-compliant solutions across its entire product portfolio that are optimized the meet key application requirements. These solutions include configurable PCIe intellectual property (IP) cores and development boards for endpoint, bridge, switch and root port functionalities. Altera’s latest Cyclone V GT FPGA Development Kit enables simple and fast PCIe Gen2 protocol implementation while reducing design risk and shortening development times. The development kit provides a quick and simple approach to develop low-cost and low-power FPGA system-level designs to achieve rapid results.

Availability
Cyclone V GT FPGAs are currently in production. Altera offers the broadest portfolio of 28 nm low-power, low-cost FPGAs in the industry, with densities ranging from 25K logic elements (LEs) to 300K LEs and the smallest form factor packaging options that are tailored to customer’s needs.