Altera releases enhanced Quartus II PLD design tool

Programmable logic supplier Altera Corp. introduced early this week an enhanced version of its Quartus II design software.

The company said v5.1 of Quartus II includes design support for the company's new Stratix II GX fpga family and completes the rollout of the PowerPlay technology suite and the Quartus II incremental design flow for increasing designer productivity.

Altera said additional productivity enhancements in Quartus II software version 5.1 include immediate and full license access to MegaCore intellectual property (IP) functions and the introduction of an external logic analyzer interface.

According to Chris Balough, director of software and Nios marketing at Altera, the Quartus II worldwide commercial user base grew by 70 percent in 2004. "The ease-of-use and productivity advantages that Quartus II delivers, in concert with the growing adoption of our programmable logic solutions, is fueling this growth rate," Balough said in a statement.

The Stratix II GX is the company's third generation of FPGAs with embedded serial transceivers.

Altera said both the subscription edition and the Web edition of Quartus II software v5.1 will be available this week. The company said the annual subscription for the Altera design software is $2,000 for a node-locked PC license. Quartus II Web Edition software can be downloaded for free from the company's website.

EE Times