Altera Corporation

James Park

Bruce B Pedersen

Wei-Jen Huang

Tony K Ngai

Sergey Yuryevich Shumarayev

Rakesh H Patel

James G Schleicher

Victor Maruri

Stephen D Brown

Vinson Chan

A programmable logic device has many regions of programmable logic, together with relatively general-purpose, programmable, interconnection resources that can be used to make interconnections between virtually any of the logic regions. In addition, various types of more local interconnection resources are associated with each logic region for facilitating the making of interconnections between adjacent or nearby logic regions without the need to use the general-purpose interconnection resources for those interconnections. The local interconnection resources support flexible clustering of logic regions via relatively direct and therefore high-speed interconnections, preferably in both horizontal and vertical directions in the typically two-dimensional array of logic regions. The logic region clustering options provided by the local interconnection resources are preferably boundary-less or substantially boundary-less within the array of logic regions.

Interconnection resources for programmable logic integrated circuit devices

A programmable logic device is adapted to predict carry values in long-chain-carry logic configurations. In the most preferred embodiment, which functions in any long-carry-chain logic configuration, each logic region calculates a result for both values of the carry-in signal to that region, and when a carry signal for the group to which the region belongs reaches the region, the correct result in each region, and thence the correct carry-out for that group, are calculated and propagated. The carry-out terminal of one group is arranged to be adjacent to the carry-in terminal of the next group, to enhance carry propagation speed. In another embodiment, each region looks back two regions to predict the carry-in. In two additional embodiments, logic is provided to mathematically calculate the carry values.

Programmable logic device with carry look-ahead

A programmable logic device is configured to accommodate multiplication by the provision in each logic region of specialized components to form and sum partial products. The specialized components are separate from the ordinary logic of the logic region, and their presence imposes little penalty on the performance of ordinary logic functions, while enhancing the speed at which multiplication is performed by minimizing the number of logic regions used for a particular multiplication operation, and also minimizing the use of the interconnection resources of the device to convey signals among those regions.

Programmable logic device configured to accommodate multiplication

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

James Park