Intel Improves FPGA Performance

What’s New:

In order to handle the growing demand for customized workloads, including enhanced AI capabilities, and to provide lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and more comprehensive solutions, Intel expanded its Intel Agilex FPGA portfolio and broadened its Programmable Solutions Group (PSG) offerings. On September 18, Intel’s FPGA Technology Day (IFTD), where hardware engineers, software developers, and system architects may meet with Intel and partner specialists, will be centered on these new products and technologies.

“In January, Intel announced the expansion of Intel Agilex portfolio to reach a wider audience and offer the widely praised Agilex FPGA advantages. At the IFTD event, we can’t wait to discuss with customers and partners this new FPGA portfolio and the prospects it will open up for programmable innovation”: Shannon Poulin, corporate vice president and group general manager of Intel’s Programmable Solutions division.

What’s Important

Because they provide versatile and adaptable platform capabilities for demanding applications and workloads, FPGAs play a significant part in Intel’s portfolio. Intel FPGAs utilize AI capabilities across hardware, IP, and software to address client challenges from the cloud to the edge.

What It Means

Intel’s most recent announcements show the development of the company’s growing investment in its FPGA portfolio. Of the 15 anticipated new products, Intel has already introduced 11, which is a record for the company’s FPGA division. The PSG business unit generated 35% sales growth year over year, according to information provided by Intel in its second quarter 2023 earnings call, marking the third consecutive quarter of record revenue.

The Specifications

The increased Intel Agilex portfolio reinforces Intel’s commitment to using FPGAs to meet all programmable logic requirements, and it includes new features that will make it easier for developers to create solutions more quickly. Furthermore, Intel is formally releasing Open FPGA Stack (OFS), the first commercial adapter built on the F2000X infrastructure processing unit (IPU) platform and a new Nios V processor, to the open source community.

Details of the Intel Agilex 3 FPGA Series

Compact FPGAs with power and cost optimization are Intel Agilex 3 chips. They serve as fundamental building elements for a number of applications in many markets, such as system/board monitoring and management, video and vision, protocol expansion, portable imaging and displays, sensor fusion, drives, robotics I/O expansion, and others. The B-Series and C-Series are two brand-new Intel Agilex 3 FPGA Series that were just given further details by Intel.

B-Series: Compared to Intel MAX 10 FPGAs, B-Series FPGAs offer more I/O density in smaller form factors at lower power. Board and system management applications, such as server platform management (PFM) applications, are the focus of B-Series FPGAs.

C-Series: For a variety of FPGA and complex programmable logic device (CPLD) applications in several vertical markets, C-Series FPGAs offer enhanced capabilities.

Expansion of the Intel Agilex 5 FPGA Early Access Program

For embedded edge applications, Intel Agilex 5 FPGAs E-Series provide power and performance at a reasonable price. When compared to competitors using 16nm nodes, E-Series FPGAs offer up to 1.6 times more performance per watt. The second-generation Intel HyperflexTM FPGA architecture and Intel 7 process technology, where transistors are designed for performance per watt, are used to achieve power capabilities.

For edge AI applications, Intel Agilex 5 FPGAs and SoCs are the best option since they introduce the industry’s first AI tensor block to mid-range FPGAs from Intel’s previous generation high-end offerings. As part of its early access program, Intel is collaborating with a number of customers to build E-Series devices, with the intention of sampling these devices to early access customers in the fourth quarter of 2023. In addition to providing open access to design software, Intel will start shipping E-Series engineering samples to clients in the first quarter of 2024. In the fourth quarter of 2023, Agilex 5 will have general access to SIMICS, a complete system simulator for pre-silicon and post-silicon software development, testing, and system integration.

Intel Agilex 7 FPGAs with R-Tile are now shipping CXL IP with 2.0 features in volume

CXL IP 2.0 features are now being shipped in bulk with Intel Agilex 7 FPGAs with R-Tile. When compared to other competing FPGA devices, the Intel Agilex 7 FPGAs with the R-Tile chiplet will be available in May 2023 and will feature cutting-edge technical capabilities with 2 times quicker PCIe 5.0 bandwidth and 4 times higher CXL bandwidth per port. Customers can quickly deploy customized technology – at scale with hardware speeds based on their specific needs – to reduce overall design costs and development processes and to expedite execution to achieve optimal data center performance thanks to the configurable and scalable architecture of Intel Agilex 7 FPGAs.

Open FPGA Stack (OFS) open source launch

For platform and workload development, developers now have complete access to the open source Open FPGA Stack (OFS) hardware code, software code, and technical documentation. Hardware and software developers can take advantage of the capabilities of Intel Agilex FPGAs and Intel Stratix 10 FPGAs thanks to the open source OFS offering. Currently available partners with deployable OFS-based platform and application offerings include BittWare, Hitek Systems, and SigmaX.

First F2000X IPU-based production adapters launch

First publicly accessible production adapters from Napatech, a top supplier of SmartNICs and IPUs, are now available. Infrastructure processing unit (IPU) adoption is rising, and new solutions are entering the market. The F2070X IPU production adapters from Napatech allow lower TCO for networking and cloud applications.

Launch of the Nios V/c tiny microcontroller

Intel is introducing the Nios V/c compact microcontroller, a new processor in the Nios V family. Based on the open source, industry standard RISC-V architecture, the Nios V/c processor is a free, soft-core IP. With a roadmap to many devices supported by Quartus Prime Standard software, it will initially target all devices supported by Intel Quartus Prime Pro software. Software for designing programmable logic devices is called Quartus Prime. Customers will have access to a service and an unlimited, quickly expanding, and dynamic ecosystem that facilitates the easier commercialization of their designs.

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