Differences Among Altera® SoC Device Families

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ID 683648
Date 8/29/2025
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Differences Among Altera® SoC Device Families
Differences Among Altera® SoC Device Families x
Overview of HPS Modules HPS Micro Processor Unit Subsystem Differences Booting and Configuration Differences Cache Coherency Unit Differences Generic Interrupt Controller Differences HPS System Memory Management Unit Differences HPS On-Chip RAM Differences HPS Error Correction Differences HPS DMA Controller Differences HPS Clock Manager Differences HPS Reset Manager Differences HPS FPGA Manager Differences HPS System Manager Differences HPS Scan Manager Differences HPS Security Feature Differences HPS System Interconnect and Firewalls Differences HPS-FPGA Bridge Differences HPS General Purpose I/O Interface Differences I/O Pin Multiplexing Differences HPS Mailbox Differences HPS SDRAM Controller Subsystem Differences HPS NAND Flash Controller Differences HPS SD/eMMC Host Controller Differences Combo DLL PHY Differences HPS Quad SPI Flash Controller Differences HPS USB 2.0 OTG Controller Differences HPS USB 3.1 Gen1 Controller Differences HPS EMAC Differences HPS SPI Controller Differences HPS I2C Controller Differences I3C Controller Differences HPS UART Controller Differences HPS CAN Controller Differences HPS Timer Differences HPS Watchdog Timer Differences HPS CoreSight Debug and Trace Differences Revision History for Differences Among Altera® SoC Device Families
Differences Among Altera® SoC Device Families

HPS Security Feature Differences

The Cyclone® V and Arria® V families offer basic security functionality with ARM TrustZone® and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption.

The Arria® 10 family improves on Cyclone® V and Arria® V security with the following features:

  • Recognition of secure fuse configuration
  • Secure state control and status check of security features
  • Secure boot options
  • Varying levels of debug visibility
  • Anti-tamper support

The Stratix® 10, Agilex™ 7, Agilex™ 5, and Agilex™ 3 families includes the Secure Device Manager (SDM). The SDM implements the following functions:

  • Device configuration
  • Security features
  • Booting the HPS

The SDM provides a robust, secure, and fully authenticated configuration scheme, allowing you to customize device configuration. Advantages of the SDM, compared to security features in earlier Altera SoC device families, include:

  • Improved configuration time
  • Improved response to single-event upset
  • Reactive zeroization of data as a response to security breaches
  • Key management and update
  • Field upgrade support

This combination of features and flexibility enables you to create secure designs that protect sensitive intellectual property (IP) and data in both FPGA and SoC devices.

The following table summarizes the differences in the security features among the various SoC families.

Table 7.  HPS Security Location Differences
Security Feature Location Cyclone® V SoC,

Arria® V SoC

 Arria® 10 SoC Stratix® 10 SoC,

Agilex™ 7

F-Series/I-Series/

M-Series SoC,

Agilex™ 5

E-Series/D-Series SoC,

Agilex™ 3

C-Series SoC
Security Fuses N/A Security Manager SDM
AES Decryption N/A Security Manager SDM
Authentication N/A Security Manager SDM
HPS Boot Reset Reset Manager Security Manager SDM
Anti-tamper RAM Scramble N/A Security Manager SDM
Control of Secure Boot N/A Security Manager SDM

For more information, refer to the Security Methodology User Guide (RDC Item #724441).

Table 8.  Advanced Security Features
Category Device

Stratix® 10 SoC

Agilex™ 7

F-Series/I-Series/

M-Series SoC

Agilex™ 5

E-Series/D-Series SoC

Agilex™ 3

C-Series SoC
Feature
Authentication Bitstream Authentication Yes Yes Yes Yes
Vendor Authorized Boot No Yes Yes Yes
Authentication Bitstream Encryption - AES-256-CTR Yes Yes Yes Yes
Encryption Key Storage: eFuse Yes Yes Yes Yes
Encryption Key Storage: BBRAM Yes Yes Yes No
Encryption Key Storage: PUF Wrapped (Flash) Yes Yes Yes Yes 15
Black Key Provisioning Yes Yes Yes Yes15
Attestation Yes Yes Yes Yes15
Advanced Features Physical Anti-Tamper Yes Yes Yes Yes
Secure Data Object Storage No Yes Yes Yes15
Cryptographic Primitive Services No Yes 16 17 Yes 18 Yes15
15 For Specification Code W/Y only.
16 For Density 006/008/012/014/022/027 Specification Code B only.
17 For Density 019/023/032/035/039/040/041 Specification Code D/E/F only.
18 For Specification Code B/D/E/G only.
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