The lowest cost FPGA to include transceivers is launched today by Altera. One of the families in the company's latest Cyclone IV FPGAs, the GX family, has up to eight 3.125GBPS transceivers for prices down to $6.
The motivation is the increasing data requirement of cell-phones. The GX devices support Gigabit Ethernet (GbE), SDI, CPRI, V-by-One and have hard IP for PCI Express (PCIe).
Cyclone IV GX devices have up to 150K logic elements (LEs), up to 6.5-Mbits of RAM, up to 360 multipliers, and up to eight integrated 3.125-Gbps transceivers. They come in packages as small 11x11 mm.
The GX devices address cost-sensitive, small form-factor applications. Power is up to 25% lower than the previous Cyclone generation and are aimed at power-sensitive applications such as handheld software-defined radio.
By integrating transceivers, the GX FPGAs eliminate external component costs and reduce power consumption by up to 30% compared to previous generation Cyclone products combined with external transceiver PHYs.
The reduced power consumption results in lower costs because it eliminates the need for heat-dissipation hardware. The GX devices require two power supplies which simplifies PCB design and reduces board space and cost.
Altera claims that the GX devices are not only to be the cheapest but the smallest and lowest power FPGAs to include transceivers. They are made on TSMC's 60nm low power process.
Another family of Cyclone IV devices, called IV E. have up to 144,000 logic elements, 3.9Mbits of RAM and up to 266 multipliers, also reducing power by 25% compared to the previous generation, and selling for $3 in large volume.
Production shipments of the EP4CGX15 and EP4C115E, the first Cyclone IV GX and Cyclone IV E devices respectively, will begin in the first quarter of 2010.