Altera targets industrial networking with new development kit

The kit is described as a fully featured hardware platform based on Terasic's DE2-115 fpga board. This includes dual 10/100/1000 Ethernet, 128Mbyte of sdram, 8Mbyte of flash, 4Mbyte of sram, a security eeprom, along with other capabilities. With an Altera Cyclone IV E fpga, the board is said to support most industrial Ethernet and fieldbus networking standards and to be suited to industrial automation and process control applications for motion control equipment, sensors, programmable logic controllers, machine vision and video surveillance equipment. Altera believes INK can cut development time by up to one year, depending on product complexity. The kit can be expanded using the integral HSMC and GPIO connectors to address a range of industrial applications. "While Altera's fpgas can support most industrial networking protocol standards, customers have had to rely on third party IP vendors and development board suppliers to offer the right hardware and software IP to meet their industrial networking requirements," said Michael Samuelian, director of the industrial and automotive business unit at Altera. "Now, by providing access to Altera's IP partners in one place and adding the capabilities of Terasic's Industrial Networking Kit, customers can generate IP evaluation packages without having to develop their own development boards, thereby reducing cost and time to market."