Altera Accelerates "Beyond HD" Video Processing with High-Performance System Development Kit

SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) today announced a high-performance system development kit capable of handling "beyond HD" resolutions and formats for customers designing multi-channel and high-resolution video processing systems.  As broadcast customers adopt IT servers and technologies to lower costs, designers must build optimized products while still meeting the performance requirements of high-resolution, dense-channel video applications.  Unlike typical FPGA broadcast development kits that only have basic design examples, Altera's Advanced Systems Development Kit supports a complete BSP (board support package) with firmware and PCI Express® (PCIe®) streaming drivers.  It is also PCIe form-factor compliant, enabling customers to deploy it in both commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and purpose-built servers.

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Commenting on the use of the new kit, Gerard Phillips, engineering group manager for technology development at Snell, a leading innovator in digital media technology, said, "At Snell, we differentiate our image processing and content management solutions through our extensive portfolio of intellectual property.  In working closely with Altera, we recognized the need for a common platform that enables a faster path from algorithms to our broad mix of products.  Altera's Advanced Systems Development Kit provides significant productivity advantages for our development teams and will allow us to bring new products to market in even less time."

"This development kit addresses the broadcast industry's move towards 'beyond HD' and the need for high-performance solutions for next-generation content production and distribution equipments," said Umar Mughal, senior manager, broadcast business unit at Altera.  "It is a unique, FPGA-based server-ready board that pushes the performance envelope, giving designers a platform capable of bringing disruptive innovations to reality faster."

Altera's new kit incorporates enough logic resources, I/O bandwidth, and external memory bandwidth to handle up to 8K ultra HD video processing.  Features of the Advanced Systems Development Kit include:

• Two 28-nm Altera® Stratix V FPGAs
• >1.5-Tbps external memory throughput
• PCIe Gen3x16 bandwidth
• PCIe form-factor compliant
• FPGA mezzanine card (FMC) front-panel expansion, for connectivity via popular standards such as SFP+ and QSFP
• High-speed mezzanine card (HSMC) expansion
• Option for BSP with Linux and Windows 7 drivers and an example video application software

Pricing and Availability

For availability and pricing information, please contact [email protected].  For more information on Altera's broadcast solutions, please visit http://www.altera.com/end-markets/broadcast/bro-index.html.  

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. Follow Altera via Facebook, RSS and Twitter.

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Editor Contacts:
Shannon Giusti
Altera Corporation
(408) 544-7472
[email protected] 

SOURCE Altera Corporation