What's New in Quartus II Software Version 11.1

Quartus^® II software v11.1, the industry's number one software in performance and productivity for CPLD, FPGA, and HardCopy^® ASIC designs, is available for download. Quartus II software v11.1 delivers support for the latest 28-nm devices – the Arria^® V and Cyclone^® V devices – as well as enhancements to the Stratix^® V device support. Plan for success with System Console, a unique debug and monitoring solution. Other features include some enhancements to Qsys and a look at how software and hardware co-design will be enabled with the ARM-based system-on-a-chip (SoC) devices.

Quartus II software v11.1 SP2 is available today from the Download Center.

Purchase Quartus^® II Subscription Edition (includes FIXED, FLOAT, ADD SEAT, or RENEWAL) at full list price and receive a free training credit worth up to USD495.00. This training credit can be used for one day of an instructor-led or virtual class training in North America only. The training credit must be used 1 year from the date of purchase. Promotion valid from March 19, 2012 through April 27, 2012.

Arria V and Cyclone V Device Support

The Arria V FPGA is a low-power FPGA with the ideal performance for applications requiring transceivers in the 6-Gbps to 10-Gbps range. The Cyclone V FPGA is the industry’s lowest power and lowest cost 28-nm FPGA. Compilation for both device families is available in Quartus II software v11.1.

Read the Tips and Techniques for 28-nm Design Optimization (PDF) white paper.

Webcast: Optimize Your 28-nm FPGA Design for Maximum Performance 10 minutes Watch this webcast to see how you can optimize your 28-nm FPGA design to maximize your system performance. You'll find out about our 28-nm architecture innovations, the design optimization techniques, and the Quartus II software automated optimization tool. Watch Now

Expanded Stratix V Device Support

Quartus II software v11.1 also delivers expanded support for the Stratix V FPGA family, including compilation support for designs containing PCI Express^® Gen3 and programming file support for QDR II and DDR3 memories. Enhancements to the fitter algorithms will help route designs faster. In addition, the new Transceiver Toolkit now has a feature called the EyeQ viewer that lets you look at the post-equalization eye diagram.

Featuring System Console

System Console is scalable, hardware debug and monitoring tool in Quartus II software. It provides an easy way to build GUI elements and connect them to hardware so that you can monitor performance, debug designs, and demonstrate design functionality. You can also debug your design anytime – in the lab, during simulation, or after the product has been shipped.

Read the System-Level Debugging and Monitoring of FPGA Designs (PDF) white paper.

		Faster Board Bring-Up with System Console See how you can bring up your board faster with a few simple checks Learn how to quickly isolate issues by checking your system’s resets and clocks, and by performing simple address-based read and write transactions  View Demo
		Building a Custom Verification GUI with System Console See how you can build your own custom verification GUI to debug and monitor your system Learn how to add different graphical elements to control and monitor your system  View Demo

Additional Enhancements

• Fractional phase-locked loops (fPLLs) – enable dynamic phase shifting and reconfiguration of many individual counter parameters
• Transceiver reconfiguration controller – supports the adaptive equalization engine and decision feedback equalizer engine
• EyeQ viewer – provides the ability to see post-equalized eye opening, including the ability to monitor the receiver eye and supporting both horizontal and vertical measurements
• ARM-based SoC devices
  • Early power estimator
  • AXI^® bus functional model (BFM) beta
• Faster system development with Qsys enhancements including:
  • Support for passing parameters down through the hierarchy of a Qsys system
  • Automatic script generation for simulation with Synopsys^® VCS and Cadence Incisive Enterprise Simulator tools in addition to Mentor Graphics^® ModelSim^® software
  • Initial support for AMBA^® AXI^TM from ARM^® 

Getting Started

Evaluate or upgrade your software with v11.1. Both Quartus II Web Edition software and ModelSim^®-Altera^® Starter Edition simulation tool do not require a license file. Quartus II Subscription Edition software includes a free 30-day trial and will require a license after the 30-day period. Follow these three steps to get started:

1. Download Quartus II software.
   • Download Quartus II Subscription Edition software (includes free 30-day trial)
   • Download Quartus II Web Edition software (free and no license required)
2. Install Quartus II software.
3. Watch the What’s New in the Quartus II Software v11.1 online training or start your evaluation and design.

Pricing and Availability

Both Quartus II software v11.1 Subscription Edition and the free Quartus II v11.1 Web Edition are now available for download. By request, you can also obtain Quartus II software and intellectual property (IP) cores in DVD format. Our software subscription program consolidates software products and maintenance charges into one annual subscription payment. Subscribers receive Quartus II software, the ModelSim-Altera Starter Edition tool, and a full license to the IP Base Suite, which includes 14 of Altera’s most popular IP, such as digital signal processing (DSP) and memory cores.

The annual software subscription is $2,995 for a node-locked PC license and is available for purchase at our eStore. Renewal products can only be applied to subscription products which are on active maintenance or less than 30 days after expiration.