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OpenCL for Altera FPGAs

The Open Computing Language (OpenCL™) programming model is now supported on Altera’s Stratix® V FPGA architecture and BittWare’s Stratix V FPGA COTS hardware, providing an incredibly powerful solution for system acceleration.

BittWare’s OpenCL Developer’s Bundle Includes:

Request more information on BittWare’s OpenCL Developers Bundle for OpenCL development support.

What is OpenCL?

The OpenCL (Open Computing Language) standard is the first royalty-free, open standard framework that enables users to write programs that execute across heterogeneous systems including CPUs (Central Processing Units), GPUs (Graphics Processing Units), DSPs (Digital Signal Processors), and FPGAs.  It allows the use of a C-based language for developing code across these different platforms.

Developed by the Khronos Group, OpenCL greatly improves speed and responsiveness for many applications, including those in defense/aerospace, communications, high end instrumentation, life sciences, and financial.

What Are the Benefits of OpenCL for FPGAs?

  • Faster time-to-market using the OpenCL C-based parallel programming language as opposed to low-level hardware description language (HDL).
  • Quick design exploration by working at a higher level of design abstraction.
  • Easy design re-use by re-targeting existing OpenCL C code to current and future FPGAs.
  • Faster design completion by generating an FPGA implementation of OpenCL C code in a single step, bypassing the manual timing closure efforts and implementation of communication interfaces between the FPGA, host, and external memories.
  • Increased performance by offloading performance-intensive functions from the host processor to the FPGA.
  • Significantly lower power by using the Altera SDK for OpenCL which generates only the logic needed to deliver.

OpenCL Solutions from Altera and BittWare

BittWare is a member of Altera’s Preferred Board Partner Program for OpenCL. BittWare’s S5-PCIe-HQ (S5PH-Q) Altera Stratix® V half-length PCIe COTS board is optimized for the most current Altera device architectures and design software and is supported by Altera’s SDK for OpenCL. The Altera® SDK for OpenCL provides a design environment enabling users to easily implement OpenCL applications on Altera’s FPGAs.   This SDK currently supports the S5PH-Q populated with the Stratix V GSMD5.  Future support for BittWare’s S5PH-Q will include both the Altera Stratix V GSMD8 and GXMA7 devices.

BittWare offers deployable COTS FPGA boards that provide superior development productivity and unmatched SWaP (Size, Weight, Power) performance.  Our focus on best practices ensures consistent product quality and product performance that is unsurpassed in the industry.

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