EP20K600CB652I8N - APEX 20KC FPGA 600K Gates 488 I/O 652-BGA | Intel
MPN: EP20K600CB652I8N ✗ End of Life| Qty | Unit Price | Extended |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $285 | $285.00 |
| 10 | $256.5 | $2,565.00 |
| 100 | $228 | $22,800.00 |
| 500 | $199.5 | $99,750.00 |
| 1,000 | $175 | $175,000.00 |
EP20K600CB652I8N Overview
A Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) is a type of programmable logic device (PLD) that contains an array of configurable logic blocks (CLBs), programmable interconnect, and I/O cells, all of which can be reconfigured by the end user after manufacturing. FPGAs sit hierarchically under: PLD -> FPGA -> SRAM-based FPGA -> APEX 20KC family. They are used to implement arbitrary digital logic, glue logic, state machines, DSP pipelines, and full processor cores without the cost and lead time of an ASIC.
The APEX 20KC architecture integrates up to 488 user I/O lines and approximately 311 kbits of embedded system block (ESB) memory, supporting concurrent read/write operations and a MultiCore architecture that combines look-up tables with product-term logic. The device supports in-system programmability via a configuration bitstream stored in external SRAM, with JTAG-based boundary-scan and ISP support. A typical propagation delay of 1.78 ns is published in third-party catalogs.
Key features of the EP20K600CB652I8N include 600 K system gates, 24,320 logic cells, 488 user I/O pins, 301.21 MHz maximum frequency, 1.78 ns propagation delay, MultiCore ESB memory, JTAG/IEEE 1149.1 boundary-scan support, 1.8 V core supply, and an industrial operating temperature grade.
Typical applications include telecommunications backplane interfaces, ASIC prototyping, DSP front-ends, high-speed bus bridging, and legacy industrial control systems where the APEX 20KC was originally qualified. The 652-BGA footprint was the high-density option for the family, supporting the largest gate count in the APEX 20KC lineup.
When designing with this device, ensure the configuration interface (typically a serial EPC2/EPC16 configuration EPROM or JTAG) is provisioned and that PCB thermal management is sized for the 652-BGA. The APEX 20KC family is mature; expect to source via authorized distributors and verify long-term supply for new production runs.
This page synthesizes distributor inventory, drop-in same-family alternatives, and practical migration notes not always covered by the original Altera APEX 20KC datasheet — useful for engineers maintaining or replacing legacy APEX-based designs.
Drop-in alternatives for EP20K600CB652I8N — same package, pin-to-pin compatible. Different-package parts requiring PCB rework are excluded.
Variants in this series
Same-series models that are drop-in compatible with EP20K600CB652I8N (same form factor and footprint) — differing in Package, Process Technology, Operating Temperature, Speed Grade, Device Type.
Quick Comparison Tool — Select alternative parts for side-by-side comparison:
EP20K600CB652I7N
✅ Drop-In✓ In Stock
$158 / Unit
View Datasheet →EP20K600CB652C8
✅ Drop-In✓ In Stock
$105 / Unit
View Datasheet →EP20K600CB652C8N
✅ Drop-In✓ In Stock
$115 / Unit
View Datasheet →EP20K600CB652C7
✅ Drop-In✓ In Stock
$1320 / Unit
View Datasheet →EP20K600CB652C9N
✅ Drop-In✓ In Stock
$128 / Unit
View Datasheet →EP20K600CB652I8N Maximum Ratings & Electrical Characteristics
| Family | APEX 20KC |
| Device Type | FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) |
| System Gates | 600,000 |
| Logic Elements / Cells | 24,320 |
| Maximum Operating Frequency | 301.21 MHz |
| Propagation Delay (typical) | 1.78 ns |
| User I/O Pins | 488 |
| Embedded Memory (ESB) | 311,296 bits |
| Supply Voltage (Core) | 1.71 V to 1.89 V (1.8 V nominal) |
| Process Technology | 0.15 µm CMOS |
| Package | 652-pin PBGA (S-PBGA-B652) |
| Package Size | 45 mm x 45 mm |
| Terminal Pitch | 1.27 mm |
| Operating Temperature Grade | Industrial (-40 °C to +85 °C) |
| Configuration Interface | JTAG / Serial / ISP |
EP20K600CB652I8N 45 mm x 45 mm Pin Configuration Guide
Pin configuration for EP20K600CB652I8N (45 mm x 45 mm package). This digital IC includes GPIO, communication interfaces (UART, SPI, I2C), and power pins. Refer to the manufacturer datasheet for alternate pin functions and configuration options. Essential for embedded system design and PCB layout.
No detailed pinout data available for EP20K600CB652I8N.
Refer to the datasheet for full pin configuration.
Typical Applications
EP20K600CB652I8N is suitable for 6 applications: Telecommunications Backplane Interface, ASIC Prototyping Platform, DSP Front-End and Co-Processor, Legacy Industrial Control Systems, High-Speed Bus Bridging and Protocol Conversion, Test and Measurement Instrumentation.
Telecommunications Backplane Interface
The EP20K600CB652I8N fits telecommunications backplane bridging because its 488 user I/O pins and 600K system gates provide enough logic density to implement multi-channel SERDES glue logic, framing/deframing state machines, and clock-data recovery blocks in a single device. Industrial temperature grade suits outdoor or environmentally-controlled central-office deployments where ambient temperatures can swing widely. The 652-BGA package exposes the maximum I/O count of the APEX 20KC family, enabling parallel bus aggregation between line cards and switch fabric ASICs. Speed grade 8 sustains 301.21 MHz internal Fmax, sufficient for legacy 622 Mbps POS/PHY and 1 Gbps Ethernet aggregation paths. Engineers migrating from this device to a modern transceiver-based FPGA must preserve the 1.8 V core rail sequencing and JTAG configuration chain. With 311 kbits of embedded system block memory the device can also buffer packet payloads without an external SRAM. This combination of I/O count, logic density, on-chip memory, and industrial temp grade made the EP20K600CB652I8N a workhorse in 2000s-era telecom infrastructure.
Recommended
ASIC Prototyping Platform
The EP20K600CB652I8N served as an ASIC prototyping vehicle because its MultiCore architecture combines look-up tables with product-term logic and embedded system blocks, allowing designers to map custom ASIC RTL into APEX primitives with high fidelity. The 600K gate capacity and 24,320 logic cells fit a typical mid-complexity ASIC of the early-2000s era, while 488 I/O pins mapped conveniently to a DIMM-style prototyping board with abundant break-out headers. Industrial temperature grade allows the prototype to be validated in harsh environments before committing to a silicon spin. Engineers often used multiple EP20K600 devices in a partitioned logic array to prototype ASICs approaching 2 M gates. The 1.8 V core supply aligns with the low-power ASIC design targets that were emerging at the time. The 652-BGA was a standard prototyping footprint used by many logic analyzer vendors for state visibility.
Recommended
DSP Front-End and Co-Processor
The EP20K600CB652I8N pairs well with a dedicated DSP or microcontroller in a co-processor role: the FPGA pre-processes high-speed data streams (FIR filters, FFT pre-conditioning, channelization) before handing lower-rate samples to the host processor. Speed grade 8 (301.21 MHz internal) supports sampling rates up to ~150 MHz for moderate-complexity FIRs, sufficient for software-defined radio and radar baseband front-ends of the early 2000s. The 311 kbits of ESB memory holds filter coefficients and small working buffers without external SRAM. Industrial temperature grade suits outdoor base-station and avionics deployments. The 488 I/O pins accept parallel ADC/DAC buses and supply the LVDS links to the host DSP. Compared with a discrete DSP, the FPGA offers parallelism that the serial DSP cannot, accelerating decimation and channelization pipelines by 5-10x. The 1.8 V core supply integrates cleanly with low-power DSP rails.
Recommended
Legacy Industrial Control Systems
The EP20K600CB652I8N remains deployed in long-lifecycle industrial control systems where replacement would require costly re-validation of the entire machine. The industrial temperature grade (-40 °C to +85 °C) suits factory floor environments with ambient swings and vibration, and the 600K gate density handles motor-control state machines, encoder feedback processing, and safety-logic interlock in a single device. Engineers value the deterministic logic that hard-wired FPGAs provide over software PLCs for hard-real-time control loops. The 652-BGA footprint was supported by long-standing PCB designs that cannot be easily reworked, making like-for-like replacement essential. With 488 user I/O the FPGA interfaces to encoder counters, PWM drivers, and analog front-ends without external I/O expanders. The 311 kbits of ESB memory stores look-up tables for sensor linearization. Modern systems migrating away from APEX 20KC typically move to Lattice ECP5 or Intel Cyclone IV/V with a full PCB redesign.
Recommended
High-Speed Bus Bridging and Protocol Conversion
The EP20K600CB652I8N bridges incompatible bus standards — for example, converting between PCI, VME, and proprietary backplane protocols — in legacy embedded systems. Its 488 I/O pins and 600K gate density provide ample logic for protocol state machines, FIFO glue, and bus arbitration. Speed grade 8 sustains 301.21 MHz internal operation, sufficient for 66 MHz PCI and 100 MHz VME bridge implementations. The 311 kbits of embedded system block memory implements small FIFOs that absorb bus-speed mismatches without external SRAM. Industrial temperature grade suits the telecom and factory environments where these bus bridges typically deploy. The 652-BGA footprint supports the highest I/O count of the APEX 20KC family, essential when bridging between wide parallel buses. Engineers preserve the JTAG configuration chain across multi-card systems using chained EPC configuration EPROMs.
Recommended
Test and Measurement Instrumentation
The EP20K600CB652I8N served in test and measurement equipment as a pattern-generator and protocol-analyzer core: the device generated stimulus vectors, captured responses, and pre-processed measurements before the host software logged results. The 488 user I/O pins mapped to the high-pin-count connector interfaces typical of ATE (automatic test equipment) and logic-analyzer pods of the era. Speed grade 8 enabled 301.21 MHz internal operation, sufficient for stimulus rates up to 200 MHz on parallel channels. The 311 kbits of ESB memory stored captured traces without external SRAM. Industrial temperature grade supported lab, factory-floor, and field-deployment environments. The 652-BGA footprint was supported by standard logic-analyzer probe footprints, allowing engineers to validate APEX designs with state-of-the-art visibility tools. Designers using this part today typically run it as long-life production test equipment with rare reconfiguration.
Recommended
Recommended Products Summary
Engineering reference data for EP20K600CB652I8N — comparison, design guidance, and compliance information.
Selection Guide
Comparison with Alternatives
| Parameter | This Product | EP20K600CB652I7N | EP20K600CB652C8 | EP20K600CB652C8N | EP20K600CB652C7 | EP20K600CB652C9N |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brand | Intel | Intel | Intel | Intel | Intel | Intel |
| Package | 652-BGA (S-PBGA-B652) | 652-BGA (S-PBGA-B652) - same | 652-BGA (S-PBGA-B652) - same | 652-BGA (S-PBGA-B652) - same | 652-BGA (S-PBGA-B652) - same | 652-BGA (S-PBGA-B652) - same |
| System Gates | 600,000 | 600,000 | 600,000 | 600,000 | 600,000 | 600,000 |
| Logic Cells | 24,320 | 24,320 | 24,320 | 24,320 | 24,320 | 24,320 |
| User I/O | 488 | 488 | 488 | 488 | 488 | 488 |
| Max Frequency | 301.21 MHz | speed grade 7 (~slower) | 301.21 MHz | 301.21 MHz | speed grade 7 (~slower) | speed grade 9 (faster) |
| Temperature Grade | Industrial (-40C to +85C) | Industrial | Commercial (0C to +70C) | Commercial | Commercial | Commercial |
| Supply Voltage | 1.8 V (1.71 V to 1.89 V) | 1.8 V | 1.8 V | 1.8 V | 1.8 V | 1.8 V |
| Lifecycle Status | NRND | NRND | Active (stocking distributor) | NRND | NRND | NRND |
Key Differentiators
- Industrial temperature grade within APEX 20KC 600K-gate family (vs EP20K600CB652C8)
- Highest speed-grade option for the EP20K600 652-BGA line-up (vs EP20K600CB652I7N)
- Maximum 488 user I/O within the APEX 20KC family (vs EP20K400CB652I8N (400K-gate variant))
- Dedicated configuration support across JTAG/serial/multi-FPGA chain (vs EP20K600CB652C7 (older speed grade))
Design Notes
Estimated: the APEX 20KC core draws substantial current at high toggle rates — typical VCCINT current for a fully-utilized EP20K600 approaches several hundred mA at 1.8 V. Provision at least four dedicated 1.8 V power planes with low-impedance decoupling (10 uF bulk + 0.1 uF + 0.01 uF ceramics per quadrant). Power-rail sequencing between VCCINT and VCCIO should be designed so VCCIO does not exceed VCCINT by more than 0.7 V during ramp-up to avoid I/O latch-up. Decoupling must be placed within 5 mm of the BGA balls to control supply noise at 300 MHz internal toggle rates.
The 652-BGA package concentrates heat directly under the die, so a continuous ground/power plane stack with thermal vias under the die-pad region is essential. Theta-JA for the 652-BGA is package-dependent but typically in the 12-18 C/W range with proper board design; without thermal vias expect junction temperatures to exceed the 85 C industrial limit in enclosed enclosures. Force-air cooling or heatsink attachment is recommended for designs with >50 percent toggle utilization or for industrial-temperature deployments where ambient reaches +70 C.
The 652-BGA at 1.27 mm pitch requires 4-6 layer PCB with microvia or via-in-pad technology for breakout routing. Maintain a continuous reference plane beneath signal traces to control impedance (target 50 ohm single-ended, 100 ohm differential). JTAG chain routing must isolate TCK from high-speed clocks to avoid configuration corruption. Configuration EPROM (EPC2/EPC16) should be placed within 50 mm of the FPGA's DATA0/DCLK/nCONFIG pins to maintain signal integrity. For multi-FPGA designs, daisy-chain MSEL pins and JTAG correctly per the APEX 20KC handbook configuration chapter.
Do not assume APEX 20KC bitstreams are forward-compatible with newer Altera/Intel families — they are not. Quartus II (last version supporting APEX 20KC) must be retained for legacy design support; current Quartus releases do not synthesize for this family. Configuration EPROMs must be sized for the compressed bitstream (typically 4-8 Mbit for EP20K600). The I-suffix variants are industrial-grade only — using a C-suffix (commercial) variant in an industrial environment voids the operating-temperature specification and may cause timing failure at cold-start below 0 C.
BGA fanout: with 1.27 mm pitch on a 4-layer board, dog-bone fanout is the standard topology — via-pad, trace, via-pad pattern. For 6+ layer boards with microvia technology, via-in-pad enables cleaner breakout but adds assembly cost. Keep all differential pairs length-matched within 150 mil for LVDS signals. Clock traces should be 50 ohm controlled-impedance with no via transitions when possible. Reserve the four corners of the BGA for global clock pins (GCLK) for shortest possible clock-tree insertion delay.
Compliance Information
APEX 20KC family pre-dates the universal RoHS transition. The C8N/C9N variants with N-suffix are likely lead-free based on Altera's late-2000s transition; the I-suffix I8N shown here is unclear from the verified data — verify lot code with an authorized distributor for RoHS/REACH documentation.
