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Contents
Background and Company Performance ........................................................................ 3
Industry Challenges .............................................................................................. 3
Technology Attributes and Future Business Value ..................................................... 3
Conclusion........................................................................................................... 7
Significance of Technology Innovation .......................................................................... 8
Understanding Technology Innovation .......................................................................... 8
Key Benchmarking Criteria .................................................................................... 9
Best Practice Award Analysis for Altera ......................................................................... 9
Decision Support Scorecard ................................................................................... 9
Technology Attributes ......................................................................................... 10
Future Business Value ......................................................................................... 10
Decision Support Matrix ...................................................................................... 11
The Intersection between 360-Degree Research and Best Practices Awards ..................... 12
Research Methodology ........................................................................................ 12
Best Practices Recognition: 10 Steps to Researching, Identifying, and Recognizing Best Practices ................................................................................................................. 13
About Frost & Sullivan .............................................................................................. 14
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Background and Company Performance
Industry Challenges
With the exponential increase in data traffic, facilitated by the increasing adoption of
mobility and the Internet of Things (IoT), companies are struggling to better manage data
center workloads while accelerating performance. Aware of such growing concerns,
contemporary semiconductor companies have sought to deliver robust field programmable
gate array (FPGA) product lines; these are programmable semiconductors that can offload
the CPU in a server and accelerate computing to keep up with the influx of Big Data and
support myriad new applications running in the data center. Although the market has
several vendors offering FPGAs who are claiming excellent performance, until recently
FPGAS utilized a fixed point architecture, which is incapable of representing very large, or
very small numbers. To address customer pain points and deliver excellent performance in
an FPGA, it has become important for FPGAs to have digital signal processors (DSPs) with
native hard floating point computational units. Additionally, there has been significant
evolution in programming languages that play to this requirement. While traditional fixed
point FPGAs can support Very High Speed Integrated Circuit (VHSIC), Hardware
Description Language (VHDL), and VeriLog, programmers now mostly use high-level
programming languages such as C, MATLAB, and Simulink. Frost & Sullivan points out that
FPGAs need floating point capabilities to leverage the productivity offered by these
languages.
However, Frost & Sullivan independent analysis confirms that delivering such an advanced
solution has its own set of challenges. While many semiconductor companies have
attempted to implement floating point operators into FPGAs, they report to Frost &
Sullivan that they have not been successful in delivering efficient performance, reducing
power consumption, and increasing speed at the same time. In addition, FPGAs come with
thousands of computational units, which makes the incorporation of floating point
operators even more challenging. To engineer such a futuristic solution, companies require
immense skill and expertise and must make a significant investment in research and
development (R&D).
In this context, Frost & Sullivan expects FPGA vendors who address the customer pain
points by developing best-in-class floating point FPGAs to enjoy a leading position in the
global FPGA market.
Technology Attributes and Future Business Value
Industry Impact
Founded in 1983, and based in San Jose, California, Altera Corporation (Altera), is a global
leader in manufacturing programmable logic devices (PLDs). Altera revolutionized digital
signal processing (DSP) with its groundbreaking introduction of IEEE 754 single precision
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floating point in its Arria 10 FPGAs in 2014. Sharply deviating from the conventional trend
of using fixed point FPGAs in electronic systems designs for data centers, radar
technology, antenna processing, and medical imaging, the next-generation FPGAs from
Altera complement central processing units (CPUs) with thousands of hardened floating
point blocks, providing a processing rate of up to 1.5 Tera floating point operations per
second (TFLOPs), greater energy efficiency, and improved productivity.
Frost & Sullivan recognizes Altera’s innovation in the company’s commitment to enabling
its customers to overcome the limitations of fixed point FPGAs in representing numerical
systems of large and small magnitudes. The company’s ability to seamlessly integrate
both IEEE 754 single precision multiplier and adder computational units with the familiar
fixed point nodes has helped it address the industry demand for greater precision in data
processing. While some of the competing DSP systems and graphics processing units
(GPUs) provide support for floating point calculation, Altera’s Generation 10 FPGAs
(Arria® 10, and the upcoming Stratix® 10) deliver this capability along with the
ubiquitous connectivity and hardware flexibility available with FPGAs.
Compared to traditional GPUs, also known as general-purpose graphics processing units
(GPGPUs), supporting floating point computation, the DSP blocks in Altera’s Generation 10
FPGAs make these units more consistent in terms of productivity levels. With its pipelined-
logic architecture instead of a GPU-parallel-processor architecture, delivering better
performance per watt GigaFLOPS (GFLOPS/W), and enabling flexible connectivity support
for the datapath, Altera’s FPGAs provide customers with reduced latency in data
processing enhanced computational capability. The FPGAs offer increased performance,
and still provide with lowest system power consumption, and performance, while providing
the high levels of fixed point performance which FPGAs are well known for.
Product Impact
Altera’s Generation 10 FPGAs were engineered to enable these hard floating point
calculations, and has enabled the company to enter new markets. At the same time it has
enhanced the performance of its Arria 10 product line and the follow-on product line of
Stratix 10 FPGAs and SoCs, which is to be launched in the first quarter of 2016.
The soon-to-be-launched Stratix 10 FPGAs from Altera’s Generation 10 solutions
demonstrates world-class capabilities. Besides a revolutionary 14 nm device fabrication
from Intel, the product will also offer a 2x core performance enhancement over other
high-end PLDs, by attaining a speed of 1 GHz. Stratix 10 will contain Altera’s proprietary
HyperFlex™ technology which also provides the company with a competitive advantage.
While conventional architectures are often limited by issues such as bus widths, congested
routing, and interconnection difficulties, Altera’s HyperFlex™ architecture overcomes these
shortcomings and guarantees optimal performance. In addition, in conjunction with the
64-bit quad core ARM Cortex™-A53 processor, Stratix 10 promises to deliver a processing
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speed of up to 10 TFLOPS, which is unmatched in the industry, along with 70 percent less
power consumption than standard FPGAs.
Visionary Innovation
Frost & Sullivan feels that one of the key strengths of Altera setting it apart from its
competitors in the global FPGA market is its strong technological expertise. With more
than three decades of experience in the industry, the company has displayed dedicated
focus and persistence in engineering industry-leading FPGAs with advanced capabilities.
Engineering in the floating point technology has empowered customers by giving them
better digital signal processing capabilities, as they now can implement their algorithms in
floating point. At the core of the solution lies Altera’s advanced variable precision DSP
blocks, each of which includes a single-precision adder and a single-precision multiplier.
The 1:1 ratio of multipliers and adders in each DSP block facilitates the independent usage
of multiply, adder, mult-add or mult-accumulator. With thousands of floating point
operators being implemented in each of these DSP blocks, Altera’s 20 nm Arria 10 range
of FPGAs has rated from 140 GFLOPS to 1.5 TFLOPS. The company’s more advanced 14
nm Stratix 10 range of FPGAs provides a peak computational rate of up to 10 TFLOPS,
which is the highest recorded speed for any semiconductor device. Further, the floating
point computational units (multiplier and adder) are integrated with the existing variable
precision fixed point modes. Thus, while designers can benefit from the fixed point DSP
processing features available in the current designs, they can also upgrade a part or all of
the design to single precision floating point for greater numerical precision, and a dynamic
range. To further boost performance, the DSP blocks support special vector modes to
leverage linear algebraic functions ideal for both high-performance computing applications
and more traditional FPGA applications, such as highly parallel fast Fourier transform
(FFT), or finite impulse response (FIR) filter implementations. Such distinct and flexible
architecture allows customers to derive the maximum benefit from floating point operators
and achieve a higher speed of up to 10 TFLOPS. With more than 70 math.h library
functions being compatible with OpenCL 1.2, the FPGAs ensure robust performance, even
in fully packed designs. Unlike competing FPGA products, there is no need to use
programmable logic for floating point computations. Also, similar clock rates as those used
in fixed point designs can support Altera’s floating point operators, even with 100% usage
of the DSP blocks.
In addition to its groundbreaking innovation of incorporating floating point operators in
FPGAs, Altera has further improvised on the architecture of the Stratix 10 range to ensure
2X core performance improvements compared to traditional high-performance
programmable devices. The company’s cutting-edge HyperFlex architecture combined with
the Intel 14 nm Tri-gate process enables this world-class performance. The core fabric
architecture, deployed in the Stratix 10 FPGA, addresses some primary issues, such as
increasing bus widths, routing congestions, and interconnection problems, delivering a
higher performance level and greater power efficiency compared to traditional fixed point
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FPGAs. The new architecture ensures a floating point clock rate of about 800MHz, with
even greater clock rates in fixed point, up to 1 GHz.
Application Diversity
Altera’s impressive portfolio of floating point FPGAs demonstrates the capability to be
deployed across varied applications. With the exponential increase in data traffic owing to
the increasing adoption of mobility, video traffic, and the Internet of Things (IoT),
companies now require large-scale data centers with efficient servers and improved
storage systems. Altera’s incorporation of floating point operators in its FPGAs enables
such capabilities. With the company’s floating point DSPs, these FPGAs provide customers
with greater data processing speed, low latency, and reduced power consumption. With
the current availability of its Arria 10 product, the company expects data centers to be the
growth engine for its floating point FPGAs. The company’s innovations also can also be
applied in radar systems, medical imaging, and wireless systems. For instance, advanced
wireless systems, incorporating MIMO, military radar, CT scan instruments, and magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI), have multiple antennas absorbing huge amounts of data. Such
systems require increased dynamic range in signal processing algorithms, which is only
possible with floating point FPGAs. While Altera’s floating point FPGAs have been
increasingly adopted for commercial purposes, the company's FPGAs and tools also enjoy
use by universities to support FPGA-based computing research.
Although engineered for varied applications, one of the distinct capabilities of Altera’s
Generation 10 FPGAs is its support for high-level programming languages. While
traditional fixed point FPGAs support only Verilog, VHDL, and Simulink, incorporation of
the floating point functionalities has enabled Altera’s FPGAs to be more compatible with
higher level programming languages, such as C, OpenCL, MATLAB, and Simulink. With
advanced functionalities and application diversity brought on by hard floating point in its
FPGAs, Altera’s recent innovation has opened up new avenues of growth for the company.
Customer Acquisition
Intensive internal research and development, a strong commitment to innovation, and the
ability to deliver high-quality products meeting customer requirements are the three
pillars of Altera’s customer acquisition strategy. Apart from gauging customer
requirements for FPGAs for over a decade and regularly upgrading its products with
enhanced capabilities, the company has continued to identify growth opportunities.
Altera’s FPGAs were used by Microsoft Research to run convolutional neural network
(CNN) algorithms, and floating point algorithms and by Baidu (in September 2014) to
generate faster, more accurate search results. These are just two examples of the
company’s visionary innovation and understanding of customer requirements. Altera’s
capability to provide unparalleled processing speed in an FPGA that offers a new level of
computational productivity, without the need for increased power, has helped the
company build a robust third-party board supplier base, which providers such as Bittware,
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Gidel, Nallatech, and ReFLEX CES. These organizations highly appreciate Altera’s Arria 10
FPGAs for the company’s undisputed capability in DSP and high-performance computing
(HPC). With the growing need for hard floating point, data center acceleration in HPC
applications, Altera’s Stratix 10 range is also likely to be widely adopted, thereby adding
to the company’s growth potential going forward.
Technology Licensing
Altera expects use of hard floating point FPGAs to become the industry standard in the
coming years. Frost & Sullivan also notes that Altera's other competitors are already
striving to incorporate floating point operators into their FPGAs. Although Altera is aware
of the increasing demand for its floating point FPGAs, the company has designed a flexible
licensing policy. The floating point architecture is fully available through Altera’s Quartus
II design suite, and also available through more specialized tools such as the Altera SDK
for OpenCL, and DSPBuilder design tools.The strategy not only offers Altera’s customers
flexibility of use, but also enhances the company’s brand visibility.
Conclusion
Altera’s work at engineering IEEE-754 floating-point on its Arria 10 and Stratix 10 FPGAs
thereby adding advanced design capabilities, empowers customers with the FPGA’s
unrivalled performance. Such holistic solutions, along with the innovative Hyperflex
architecture, not only ensures enhanced performance, but also supports varied
applications in next-generation wireless systems, medical imaging, radar, and data
centers. With a flexible technology licensing policy that allows customers to buy FPGAs
and license the supporting tools without having to pay extra royalty or per unit cost,
Altera has a well-articulated strategy for customer acquisition. With its strong overall
performance, Altera Corporation has earned the 2015 Frost & Sullivan Global Technology
Innovation Leadership Award.
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Significance of Technology Innovation Ultimately, growth in any organization depends upon finding new ways to excite the
market, and upon maintaining a long-term commitment to innovation. At its core,
technology innovation or any other type of innovation can only be sustained with
leadership in three key areas: understanding demand, nurturing the brand, and
differentiating from the competition.
Understanding Technology Innovation
Technology innovation begins with a spark of creativity that is systematically pursued,
developed, and commercialized. This spark can result from a successful partnership, a
productive in-house innovation group, or the mind of a single individual. Regardless of the
source, the success of any new technology is ultimately determined by its innovativeness
and its impact on the business as a whole.
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Key Benchmarking Criteria
For the Global Technology Innovation Leadership Award, Frost & Sullivan analysts
independently evaluated two key factors—Technology Attributes and Future Business
Value—according to the criteria identified below.
Technology Attributes
Criterion 1: Industry Impact
Criterion 2: Product Impact
Criterion 3: Scalability
Criterion 4: Visionary Innovation
Criterion 5: Application Diversity
Future Business Value
Criterion 1: Financial Performance
Criterion 2: Customer Acquisition
Criterion 3: Technology Licensing
Criterion 4: Brand Loyalty
Criterion 5: Human Capital
Best Practice Award Analysis for Altera Corporation
Decision Support Scorecard
To support its evaluation of best practices across multiple business performance
categories, Frost & Sullivan employs a customized Decision Support Scorecard. This tool
allows our research and consulting teams to objectively analyze performance, according to
the key benchmarking criteria listed in the previous section, and to assign ratings on that
basis. The tool follows a 10-point scale that allows for nuances in performance evaluation;
ratings guidelines are illustrated below.
RATINGS GUIDELINES
The Decision Support Scorecard is organized by Technology Attributes and Future
Business Value (i.e., the overarching categories for all 10 benchmarking criteria; the
definitions for each criteria are provided beneath the scorecard). The research team
confirms the veracity of this weighted scorecard through sensitivity analysis, which
confirms that small changes to the ratings for a specific criterion do not lead to a
significant change in the overall relative rankings of the companies.
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The results of this analysis are shown below. To remain unbiased and to protect the
interests of all organizations reviewed, we have chosen to refer to the other key players
as Competitor 2 and Competitor 3.
DECISION SUPPORT SCORECARD FOR TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION AWARD
Measurement of 1–10 (1 = poor; 10 = excellent)
Technology Innovation
Technology
Attributes
Future
Business Value Average Rating
Altera Corporation 9.6 9.6 9.6
Competitor 2 8.5 8.3 8.4
Competitor 3 7.6 7.6 7.6
Technology Attributes
Criterion 1: Industry Impact
Requirement: Technology enables the pursuit of groundbreaking new ideas, contributing
to the betterment of the entire industry
Criterion 2: Product Impact
Requirement: Specific technology helps enhance features and functionality of the entire
product line for the company
Criterion 3: Scalability
Requirement: Technology is scalable, enabling new generations of products over time,
with increasing levels of quality and functionality
Criterion 4: Visionary Innovation
Requirement: Specific new technology represents true innovation based on a deep
understanding of future needs and applications
Criterion 5: Application Diversity
Requirement: New technology serves multiple products, multiple applications, and
multiple user environments
Future Business Value
Criterion 1: Financial Performance
Requirement: High potential for strong financial performance in terms of revenues,
operating margins and other relevant financial metrics
Criterion 2: Customer Acquisition
Requirement: Specific technology enables acquisition of new customers, even as it
enhances value to current customers
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Criterion 3: Technology Licensing
Requirement: New technology displays great potential to be licensed across many sectors
and applications, thereby driving incremental revenue streams
Criterion 4: Brand Loyalty
Requirement: New technology enhances the company’s brand, creating and/or nurturing
brand loyalty
Criterion 5: Human Capital
Requirement: Customer impact is enhanced through the leverage of specific technology,
translating into positive impact on employee morale and retention
Decision Support Matrix
Once all companies have been evaluated according to the Decision Support Scorecard,
analysts can then position the candidates on the matrix shown below, enabling them to
visualize which companies are truly breakthrough and which ones are not yet operating at
best-in-class levels.
DECISION SUPPORT MATRIX FOR TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION AWARD
High
Low
Low High
Future Business Value
Technology Attributes
Altera
Competitor 2
Competitor 3
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The Intersection between 360-Degree Research and Best
Practices Awards
Research Methodology
Frost & Sullivan’s 360-degree research
methodology represents the analytical
rigor of our research process. It offers a
360-degree-view of industry challenges,
trends, and issues by integrating all 7 of
Frost & Sullivan's research methodologies.
Too often, companies make important
growth decisions based on a narrow
understanding of their environment,
leading to errors of both omission and
commission. Successful growth strategies
are founded on a thorough understanding
of market, technical, economic, financial,
customer, best practices, and demographic
analyses. The integration of these research
disciplines into the 360-degree research
methodology provides an evaluation
platform for benchmarking industry players and for identifying those performing at best-
in-class levels.
360-DEGREE RESEARCH: SEEING ORDER IN
THE CHAOS
Technology
Obsolescence
Disruptive
Technologies
New
Applications
CEO
Demographics
Needs
and
PerceptionsSegmentation
Buying
Behavior
Branding
and
Positioning
Competitive
Benchmarking
Emerging
Competition
Competitive
Strategy
Capital
Investments
Availability
of
Capital
Country
Risk
Economic
Trends
Crowd
Sourcing
Growth
Strategies
Career
Development
Growth
Implementation
Industry
Evolution
New Vertical
Markets
Industry
Expansion
Industry
Convergence
Emerging
Technologies
Smart Cities
Sustainability
New Business
Cultures
GeoPolitical
Stability
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Best Practices Recognition: 10 Steps to Researching,
Identifying, and Recognizing Best Practices
Frost & Sullivan Awards follow a 10-step process to evaluate Award candidates and assess
their fit with select best practice criteria. The reputation and integrity of the Awards are
based on close adherence to this process.
STEP OBJECTIVE KEY ACTIVITIES OUTPUT
1 Monitor, target, and screen
Identify Award recipient candidates from around the globe
• Conduct in-depth industry research
• Identify emerging sectors • Scan multiple geographies
Pipeline of candidates who potentially meet all best-practice criteria
2 Perform 360-degree research
Perform comprehensive, 360-degree research on all candidates in the pipeline
• Interview thought leaders and industry practitioners
• Assess candidates’ fit with best-practice criteria
• Rank all candidates
Matrix positioning all candidates’ performance relative to one another
3
Invite thought leadership in best practices
Perform in-depth examination of all candidates
• Confirm best-practice criteria • Examine eligibility of all candidates
• Identify any information gaps
Detailed profiles of all ranked candidates
4
Initiate research director review
Conduct an unbiased evaluation of all candidate profiles
• Brainstorm ranking options • Invite multiple perspectives on candidates’ performance
• Update candidate profiles
Final prioritization of all eligible candidates and companion best-practice positioning paper
5
Assemble panel of industry experts
Present findings to an expert panel of industry thought leaders
• Share findings • Strengthen cases for candidate eligibility
• Prioritize candidates
Refined list of prioritized Award candidates
6
Conduct global industry review
Build consensus on Award candidates’ eligibility
• Hold global team meeting to review all candidates
• Pressure-test fit with criteria • Confirm inclusion of all eligible candidates
Final list of eligible Award candidates, representing success stories worldwide
7 Perform quality check
Develop official Award consideration materials
• Perform final performance benchmarking activities
• Write nominations • Perform quality review
High-quality, accurate, and creative presentation of nominees’ successes
8
Reconnect with panel of industry experts
Finalize the selection of the best-practice Award recipient
• Review analysis with panel • Build consensus • Select winner
Decision on which company performs best against all best-practice criteria
9 Communicate recognition
Inform Award recipient of Award recognition
• Present Award to the CEO • Inspire the organization for continued success
• Celebrate the recipient’s performance
Announcement of Award and plan for how recipient can use the Award to enhance the brand
10 Take strategic action
Upon licensing, company may share Award news with stakeholders and customers
• Coordinate media outreach • Design a marketing plan • Assess Award’s role in future strategic planning
Widespread awareness of recipient’s Award status among investors, media personnel, and employees
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About Frost & Sullivan
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