Improving FPGA Performance and Area Using an Adaptive Logic Module

This paper proposes a new adaptable FPGA logic element based on fracturable 6-LUTs, which fundamentally alters the longstanding belief that a 4-LUT is the most efficient area/delay tradeoff. We will describe theory and benchmarking results showing a 15% performance increase with 12% area decrease vs. a standard BLE4. The ALM structure is one of a number of architectural improvements giving Altera’s 90nm Stratix II architecture a 50% performance advantage over its 130nm Stratix predecessor.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: FPL
• Authors: Michael Hutton, Jay Schleicher, David M. Lewis, Bruce Pedersen, Richard Yuan, Sinan Kaptanoglu, Gregg Baeckler, Boris Ratchev, Ketan Padalia, Mark Bourgeault, Andy Lee, Henry Kim, Rahul Saini
• Keywords: Adaptable Fpga Logic, Altera’s 90nm Stratix, FPL 2004, Stratix Predecessor