Altera Infuses AI Into New Mid-Range FPGAs
Just a month following its re-establishment, FPGA firm Altera showcased its AI-oriented Agilex 5 FPGAs at Embedded World 2024 held in Nuremberg.
Previously in February, Intel revealed its decision to divest Altera as an independent entity concentrated on FPGAs. Altera, which boasts a 40-year legacy in the sector, is recognized for its industry prominence. Although currently under the full ownership of Intel, Altera's CEO, Sandra Rivera, disclosed Intel's intention to divest part of its shares later within the year, setting the stage for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) anticipated to occur in approximately two years.
All About Circuits’ Jeff Child learns about new Altera Agilex 5 FPGAs from Altera’s CEO, Sandra Riveraat Embedded World 2024.
During the Embedded World event, Altera unveiled several key updates, including:
- The introduction of the new Agilex 5 System-on-Chip (SoC) FPGAs
- Enhancements to the Quartus Prime Design Software
- Extended support for the FPGA product lifecycle
Introducing Agilex 5 SoC FPGAs
Altera has introduced the mid-range Agilex 5, touting it as the first-ever FPGA with AI capabilities integrated throughout its silicon core. The company frequently refers to these latest offerings as "FPGAi" to emphasize their enhanced AI functions.
Agilex 5 FPGAs are infused with AI throughout the architecture.
Imbued with AI Capabilities
The design of the Agilex 5 FPGAs incorporates AI features deeply embedded into the core architecture.
Performance and Efficiency Gains in New Agilex 5 FPGAs
Altera has noted substantial advancements in both the performance and energy efficiency of its new Agilex 5 FPGAs, including:
- A doubling in performance per watt compared to other 7-nanometer FPGAs on the market.
- A fivefold expansion in INT8 processing resources relative to Altera's previous FPGA models.
- A peak INT8 performance of 56 Tera Operations Per Second (TOPS).
- An image processing efficiency that is 1.7 times superior to competitor GPUs, as determined by frames per second per watt.
- A 69% improvement in frames per second performance over other AI-centric FPGA families.
Altera is reporting significant performance improvements for their new Agilex 5 FPGAs.
Along with showcasing the Agilex 5 units, Rivera underscored the significance of comprehensive software tool flows and AI support for Altera’s FPGA clientele. She highlighted Altera's multi-year efforts to enhance not only the hardware with AI but also to expand the capabilities of their software development tools with AI features.
Rivera explained that Altera is dedicated to aiding their clients in accelerating the development of prototypes and expediting the launch of new products to the marketplace. For instance, Ikegami leveraged the newest Agilex 5 FGPAs along with Altera's AI software tools and intellectual properties (IP) to craft an innovative edge video solution that demands substantial data bandwidth with minimal power consumption. Within a 20-hour development window utilizing Altera's tools, Ikegami was already showcasing live camera feeds.
Security was also a prominent topic in the conversation about Agilex 5 FPGAs. The incorporation of advanced AI within the FPGA is set to enhance data security by enabling all data to be processed internally. This offers a more secure alternative to older and other competitive solutions, which often necessitate the transfer of data from the FPGA to a separate AI coprocessor.
Agilex 5 devices and their corresponding development kits are now up for grabs from Altera. The company also spoke of a burgeoning network of ecosystem partners that supply tailor-made boards, system-on-modules (SOMs), IPs, and additional relevant services.
Quartus Prime Enhancements
During the Embedded World showcase, Altera also rolled out the newest iteration of Quartus Prime Pro Edition Design Software. Quartus Prime furnishes a full suite of capabilities for design formulation, FPGA synthesis, refinement, validation, and simulation.
Updates to Quartus Prime Design Software enhance the FPGA development flow.
Through Quartus, Altera aims to offer a streamlined design process centered around intellectual property (IP) and adaptable design templates tailored for their emerging Agilex 5 SoC FPGAs. Additionally, Altera announced recent enhancements to third-party tools to ensure compatibility with the Agilex 5 devices.
Prolonged Support for FPGA Life Cycle Until 2040
In the same week, Altera proclaimed an extension of its life cycle support by an additional five years for select models within the MAX and Cyclone FPGA series. As FPGAs are increasingly integrated into arenas such as industrial automation and intelligent electricity grid management, prolonging support for these components is becoming crucial.
Altera announces an extension of their product support for multiple FPGA families.
With the newly announced extensions, product developers planning to launch new offerings in 2025 can rely on a minimum of 15 years of sustained life cycle support from Altera for these particular FPGA product lines.
The Significance of These Developments
As AI technology and high-performance FPGAs expand toward edge computing, they are more frequently being utilized by specialists in various applications rather than by AI experts alone. Consequently, the availability of user-friendly IP and software tools is becoming increasingly critical to foster innovation across numerous sectors. While the reconfigurability of FPGAs allows for future system updates, these devices also need to maintain energy efficiency. Altera aspires for their latest Agilex 5 SoC FPGAs to fulfill these requirements and to facilitate additional advancements.
