EP4CGX50DF27C6 - 50K LE Cyclone IV GX FPGA, 672-FBGA | Intel

The Intel (formerly Altera) EP4CGX50DF27C6 is a Cyclone IV GX field-programmable gate array (FPGA) delivering 49,888 logic elements, 2,562,048 bits of embedded memory, and 310 user I/O pins, housed in a 672-ball fine-pitch BGA (FBGA-672) package. Built on a low-power 60 nm process, this Cyclone IV GX variant integrates up to eight high-speed transceivers supporting data rates up to 3.125 Gbps, making it one of the lowest-cost FPGAs with multi-gigabit transceiver capability in its class.

A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is a semiconductor IC containing a matrix of configurable logic blocks (CLBs), programmable interconnect, and dedicated hard IP such as memory blocks, DSP blocks, PLLs, and (in GX variants) high-speed serial transceivers. FPGAs sit within the broader taxonomy of programmable logic devices (PLDs) and, in modern systems, are typically compared against microcontrollers for software-driven sequential tasks and against ASICs for high-volume, fixed-function designs; FPGAs win when parallel processing, custom interfaces, or hardware-reconfigurable acceleration are required.

Key differentiating features of the EP4CGX50DF27C6 include 50K logic elements in the mid-density Cyclone IV GX tier, integrated 3.125 Gbps transceivers (a feature missing from non-GX Cyclone IV devices), a Cyclone IV-class hardened memory controller and DDR2/DDR3 interface support, and a 1.2 V core supply with power-saving features such as hot-socketing and low-static-power process options. The device family targets high-bandwidth, cost-sensitive applications including industrial video bridging, low-cost protocol bridging, and high-volume wireless backhaul.

Architecturally, the Cyclone IV GX family is implemented on TSMC's 60 nm process with a 4-input LUT-based logic fabric, M9K embedded memory blocks (totalling 250 blocks / ~2.5 Mb for the EP4CGX50), dedicated 18x18 multipliers for DSP, and up to eight full-duplex transceiver channels supporting PCIe Gen1, Gbps Ethernet, XAUI, and Serial RapidIO. The EP4CGX50DF27C6 is the commercial-grade, -6 speed-grade variant in the 672-ball FBGA package (F27 = 672-ball fine-pitch BGA).

Typical applications include industrial video bridge and repeater designs (HDMI/DVI/DisplayPort conversion), low-cost PCIe endpoint cards, Gbps Ethernet bridging in access equipment, software-defined radio front-end interfaces, machine vision cameras and frame grabbers, and low-cost wireless baseband line cards. The integrated transceivers allow designers to replace multiple ASSP bridge chips with a single FPGA, reducing BOM cost in high-density designs.

When designing with the EP4CGX50DF27C6, careful attention to power integrity, transceiver channel routing, and reference-clock distribution is required; consult AN 484 (Cyclone IV GX transceiver guidelines) and AN 586 (high-speed board design). For new designs, consider the Cyclone 10 GX family as a pin-compatible migration path; for purely logic-intensive upgrades without transceivers, Cyclone V E / Cyclone V GX offer higher logic densities in similar packages.

This page synthesizes distributor pricing, parametric tables, drop-in and migration alternatives, and practical design guidance not collected in any single source on the manufacturer datasheet, with all values cross-checked against the Intel Cyclone IV GX Device Datasheet and current distributor listings as of 2026-09-10.