Texas Instruments and Altera Partner to Address Low-Cost PCI Express Applications

Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR), the first FPGA vendor to offer a fully PCI-SIG-compliant PCI Express™ solution, and Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN), the proven leader of PCI Express transceiver technology and the first to demonstrate a PCI Express-based physical interface (PHY) and bridge, today announced a partnership to develop a compliant, low-cost PCI Express reference design. The collaboration will deliver a flexible, cost-effective solution to address emerging embedded PCI Express applications, including PC peripheral cards, video and image processing equipment, and networking equipment.

“Altera is a strong partner for PCI Express technology. Our PCI-SIG-compliant PCI Express solution, which includes Altera’s low-cost FPGA portfolio and TI’s PIPE-based PHY technology, will significantly reduce cost and risk to our customers,” said Julie Holland, general manager for TI’s connectivity solutions group. “TI’s PCI Express PHY technology is already being used in its PCI Express Bridge and 1394a devices, both of which are certified as PCI Express 1.0a compliant and are currently sampling.”

The partnership addresses the need for a low-cost, fully compliant reference design for embedded systems bridging from legacy interfaces. It also adopts the new protocol features of PCI Express, including quality of service and virtual channel support. This builds on the full compliance awarded to Altera at the September PCI-SIG compliance workshop for its Stratix® GX FPGAs and its commitment to the PCI Express technology.

“TI has a successful track record of delivering best-in-class transceiver technology that meets the performance, compliance, and cost requirements for engineers using PCI Express,” said Danny Biran, Altera’s Vice President, Product and Corporate Marketing. “This collaborative effort is a creative way of extending Altera’s and TI’s positions as leaders in our respective industries.”