Altera is the leader in digital signal processing (DSP) performance for FPGAs. Recent benchmarks compared the performance of Altera's and Xilinx's high-performance and low-cost FPGAs. These benchmarks used open source intellectual property (IP) cores readily available from www.opencores.org.
Results from the DSP open core benchmark show that:
- For high-density FPGAs, Altera's Stratix® II FPGAs offer 1.8x higher DSP performance than Virtex-4 FPGAs
- For low-cost FPGAs, Altera's Cyclone® II FPGAs offer 2x higher DSP performance than Spartan-3 FPGAs
The benchmark suite includes six open cores from www.opencores.org and each core has popularity statistics higher than 10 percent.
Figure 1 shows the high-density FPGA performance comparison between Altera's Stratix II and Xilinx's Virtex-4 FPGAs. Figure 2 shows the results of low-cost FPGA performance comparison between Altera’s Cyclone II and Xilinx's Spartan-3 FPGAs.
Figure 1. DSP IP Performance Benchmark Data Comparing Stratix II and Virtex-4 FPGAs
Figure 2. DSP IP Performance Benchmark Data Comparing Cyclone II and Spartan-3 FPGAs
Notes:
- The relative performance for VCS is the average of the three sub-systems in the VCS design
- CFFT design was chosen because it is a common function in typical DSP designs rather than by its popularity statistics on www.opencores.org.
Table 1 shows the benchmark setup and the device speed grade information.
Table 1. Benchmark Setup and Device Speed Grade Information
| FPGA Category | FPGA Family | Speed Grade | Synthesis Tool | Place-and-Route Tool |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High-Performance FPGAs | Altera® Stratix II | Fastest (-3) | Synplify Pro 8.0 | Quartus® II version 5.0 |
| Xilinx Virtex-4 | Fastest (-12) | Synplify Pro 8.0 | ISE 7.1i Service Pack 1 | |
| Low-Cost FPGAs | Altera Cyclone II | Fastest (-6) | Synplify Pro 8.0 | Quartus II version 5.0 |
| Xilinx Spartan-3 | Fastest (-5) | Synplify Pro 8.0 | ISE 7.1i Service Pack 1 |
Table 2 provides detailed information on the DSP open cores used in this performance benchmark. (See more information on performance benchmarking methodology).
Table 2. DSP Open Core Performance Benchmark Core Information
| Core Name | Core Description |
|---|---|
| AES | AES (Rijndael) crypto core |
| CORDIC | CORDIC arithmetic core |
| FM | Simple FM receiver |
| VGA | VGA/LCD controller |
| VCS | Video compression system. Three sub-systems were benchmarked: discrete cosine transform (DCT), Huffman decoder, and Huffman encoder |
| CFFT | Radix 4 complex fast Fourier transform |
