The onset of the 5G era will lead to a surge in data processing volumes.
FPGAs are more efficient than traditional processors.
Agilex, Intel's First FPGA After Altera Acquisition

The importance of data centers and the use of IoT devices have increased significantly in recent years. Consequently, demand for FPGAs is gradually increasing in various application areas that previously relied primarily on conventional processors. This is because FPGAs offer greater efficiency than traditional processors for specialized purposes.

Agilex, the first FPGA released by Intel after its acquisition of Altera, stands out for being manufactured using Intel's 10nm process. Even more intriguing is its support for the recently announced Compute eXpress Link (CXL) interfaces (next-generation interfaces) and PCIe 5.0.

Agilex can secure sufficient bandwidth even when used with dedicated accelerators such as CPUs and GPUs. Furthermore, it supports not only ultra-fast memory such as DDR5 and HBM2, but also Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory.
We'll delve into what Agilex is and what kind of FPGA it is from Jae-cheol Lee, the manager who is in charge of Intel FPGA technology support at Uniquest and will be hosting this webinar.


Q1. Data traffic continues to increase. Why do you think it is increasing?
The 5G era has recently arrived in earnest, and the use of data-intensive applications like IoT is on the rise. Consequently, the amount of data that server systems and network configurations must process is increasing significantly.


Q2. What are the benefits of using FPGAs in data centers?
Data centers typically employ numerous boards to process massive amounts of data. The recent dramatic increase in the amount of data data centers must handle has necessitated the need for boards with numerous slots. This leads to increased power consumption, which runs counter to the global trend toward environmentally friendly policies. On the other hand, FPGAs offer the advantage of integrating multiple functions onto a single chip. This allows for higher performance with fewer chips.
Q3. So, what applications are primarily accelerated by FPGAs within data centers?
It can accelerate a variety of applications. Google's AutoDraw is a prime example. Users draw a rough sketch, and AI transforms it into a sophisticated drawing. It compares the user's drawing with images stored in existing databases to find similar items. This process requires multiple stages of data processing. This is where FPGAs can come in handy.


Q4. The 5G era is in full swing. How much do you expect FPGA adoption in data centers to increase?
Many companies are already developing FPGAs for use in data centers. Companies like Microsoft and Alibaba are already utilizing FPGAs in their search engines.


Q5. What differentiates Agilex from existing FPGA products?
The Intel Agilex, being released this time, is the first Intel FPGA released since Altera's acquisition by Intel. Therefore, it can be seen as embodying Intel's technological leadership.
Q6. What are the unique features that only Agilex has?
Agilex leverages Compute eXpress Link (CXL) technology to build a low-latency interface for Intel FPGAs and Xeon CPUs, enabling high-bandwidth memory access. It also supports DDR5, with PCI Express 5.0 support coming soon.


Q7. What support can Intel provide to data center engineers when using Agilex?
FPGA design has hardware and software aspects. On the hardware side, Intel will support Quartus, its existing FPGA development tool. On the software side, an integrated tool environment will be available through OneAPI.


Intel Agilex FPGAs are useful for engineers developing data centers and cloud services. The e4ds webinar on June 19th will provide insight into what Agilex FPGAs are, their features, and how they can be utilized.