Altera’s Stratix II GX FPGA Development Board Provides XLoom With a Unique Bit Error Rate Testing Environment
San Jose, Calif. and Sunnyvale, Calif., August 11, 2008—Continuing to demonstrate the flexibility and versatility FPGAs offer, Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) today announced XLoom Communications is leveraging its Stratix® II GX FPGA signal integrity development kit to provide a unique bit error rate (BER) testing environment. Altera’s FPGA-based development board enables XLoom to test its chip-scale optoelectronic interconnect modules more cost-effectively compared to traditional BER testing equipment. This unique testing environment provides a closer representation of actual customer conditions while delivering additional space and energy savings.
The Stratix II GX FPGA signal integrity development kit delivers a more than 90 percent savings over traditional BER testers that cost as much as $100,000. In addition, the small footprint of the Stratix II GX development kit helps maximize lab space while delivering a significant reduction in energy consumption and minimizing set-up and support time for engineers.
“Our AVDAT 4Xâ„¢ 20 Gbps drop-in optical connector is thoroughly tested at various data speeds of up to 5 Gbps per channel. Previous BER testing equipment was bulky, costly and required the use of nearly our entire production lab,†said Avner Badihi, president and CTO, XLoom Communications. “Altera’s Stratix II GX FPGA development board has a much lower cost in absolute terms and requires less lab space and power, which greatly helps our cost effectiveness. By the end of this year, our plans are to have 10 to 15 Stratix II GX FPGA boards set up, with an expected savings of more than one million dollars in equipment and energy costs and a savings of more than 400 square feet of lab space.â€
XLoom implemented the unique BER testing procedures using Stratix II GX development boards for the design and production of its AVDAT 4X optical 10GbaseCX4 transceiver. The Stratix II GX FPGAs were instrumental in enabling XLoom to develop InfiniBand SDR and DDR (20 Gbps) connectivity and 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity for the AVDAT 4X.
“XLoom’s innovative use of our Stratix II GX development kit is yet another example of how companies are applying our FPGA products to cost-effectively address the difficult challenges they face,†said David Greenfield, senior director of product marketing, high-end products at Altera. “We are pleased to be able to help XLoom and other industry pioneers bring innovations to their space and succeed in their markets.â€
Availability
Altera’s transceiver signal integrity development kits featuring Stratix II GX FPGAs are available now. For more information about Altera’s development kits, visit www.altera.com/pr/devkits. For additional information about Altera’s Stratix II GX FPGAs, visit www.altera.com/pr/stratix2gx.
About XLoom Communications
XLoom Communications, Inc. (www.xloomcom.com), an industry innovator of chip-scale optoelectronic interconnects, delivers low-power, high-speed interconnect solutions for data center applications such as Ethernet, Infiniband and backplanes. XLoom’s solutions enable the cost-effective alternative to copper interconnects in high-speed data center environments, where the physical limitations of copper are costly and ineffective. XLoom is based in Tel-Aviv, Israel and in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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 at www.altera.com.