Take it to the MAX

In a move designed to meet perceived needs of those developing higher end consumer electronics products, Altera has expanded its programmable logic family with the launch of the MAXIIZ cpld. According to Ro Chawla, the company’s European marketing manager, the device builds on the MAXII architecture. “We’ve made some changes to the circuitry to reduce static power,” he claimed. More precisely, the company has optimised the low voltage power on reset circuitry to reduce stand by power consumption as well as increasing the transistor threshold voltage to reduce leakage. The result is a device which has a dynamic power consumption of 8.9mA at 50MHz and a static power consumption of 29µA. “It may have a lower performance,” Chawla continued, “but it’s aimed at designs which typically run in the kilohertz range.” MAX IIZ devices will be available in two densities: 240 and 570 logic elements. They will also be available in microbga packages with up to 160 I/O. Increased logic density and greater I/O count, says Altera, will allow greater integration of existing functions from other devices, reducing board space, power consumption and overall system cost. Chawla added: “Time to market is critical and we think MAXIIZ will help companies to differentiate their products based on features.”