Default drive strengths for Stratix III and Cyclone III

Hi,

If you are interested in quickly looking into your I/O signal integrity but don't know how or don't want to run IBIS/HSPICE, you can use the Advanced I/O Timing feature of Quartus II. You must turn it on for Stratix II, and it is on by default for Stratix III in QII 7.1. Advanced I/O Timing allows you to specify a simple model of the outside world -- near- and far-end termination and loads, plus a transmission line -- and will compute various statistics. These stats include delay, ringing, slew rates, etc.

Quartus II can also help you with third party tools by writing out IBIS- and HSPICE netlists for your I/Os. The benefit of going this route (vs. setting up yourself) is that Quartus worries about the details (I/O standard, drive strength, voltages, measurement points) so you don't have to. And the resulting HSPICE decks are nicely commented so that you can muck with them to adjust to your needs.

Please see the I/O Management Chapter of the Quartus Handbook for details of using these features (http://www.altera.com/literature/hb/qts/qts_qii52013.pdf)).

Paul Leventis

Altera Corp.