EP1C12F324C8 - Cyclone FPGA, 12060 LEs, 324-BGA | Intel
MPN: EP1C12F324C8 ✗ End of Life| Qty | Unit Price | Extended |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $38.5 | $38.50 |
| 10 | $34.2 | $342.00 |
| 100 | $28.9 | $2,890.00 |
| 500 | $24.75 | $12,375.00 |
| 1,000 | $21.5 | $21,500.00 |
Drop-in alternatives for EP1C12F324C8 — same package, pin-to-pin compatible. Different-package parts requiring PCB rework are excluded.
Quick Comparison Tool — Select alternative parts for side-by-side comparison:
EP1C12F324C8N
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$51.75 / Unit
View Datasheet →EP1C12F324C7N
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$37.2 / Unit
View Datasheet →EP1C12F324C6N
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$22.1 / Unit
View Datasheet →EP1C12F324C7
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$40.26 / Unit
View Datasheet →EP1C12F324C6AA
✅ Drop-In✓ In Stock
$36.9 / Unit
View Datasheet →EP1C12F324C6AA
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$36.9 / Unit
View Datasheet →EP1C12F324C8 Maximum Ratings & Electrical Characteristics
| Series | Cyclone |
| Family | Cyclone I (EP1C12) |
| Manufacturer | Intel (formerly Altera) |
| Process Technology | 130 nm CMOS |
| Number of Logic Elements (LEs) | 12060 |
| Number of LABs/CLBs | 1206 |
| Total Embedded Memory | 239616 bits |
| Number of I/O Pins | 249 |
| Package | 324-FBGA (FineLine BGA), 19 x 19 mm, 1.0 mm pitch |
| Core Voltage | 1.5 V |
| I/O Voltage | Up to 3.3 V (LVTTL/LVCMOS/SSTL/LVDS/PCI) |
| Number of PLLs | 2 |
| Maximum Internal Clock Frequency | 275 MHz (C8 speed grade) |
| Speed Grade | C8 (commercial, slowest speed bin) |
| Operating Temperature | 0C to +85C (commercial) |
| Configuration Method | SRAM-based, external configuration device (EPCS series) |
| Mounting Type | Surface Mount (BGA) |
| RoHS Status | Compliant (per DigiKey listing) |
| Lead-Free | Yes |
EP1C12F324C8 Pin Configuration
| Pin A1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 1 |
| Pin A2 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 1 |
| Pin A3 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 1 |
| Pin A4 | VCCIO1 — I/O bank 1 voltage supply (3.3 V max) |
| Pin A5 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 1 |
| Pin A6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 1 |
| Pin B1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin B2 | GND — Ground reference |
| Pin B3 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 1 |
| Pin B4 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 1 |
| Pin B5 | GND — Ground reference |
| Pin B6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 1 |
| Pin C1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin C2 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin C3 | VCCINT — Core voltage supply (1.5 V) |
| Pin C4 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 1 |
| Pin C5 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 1 |
| Pin C6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 1 |
| Pin D1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin D2 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin D3 | GND — Ground reference |
| Pin D4 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 1 |
| Pin D5 | VCCIO1 — I/O bank 1 voltage supply |
| Pin D6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 1 |
| Pin E1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin E2 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin E3 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin E4 | VCCINT — Core voltage supply (1.5 V) |
| Pin E5 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 1 |
| Pin E6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 1 |
| Pin F1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin F2 | GND — Ground reference |
| Pin F3 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin F4 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 1 |
| Pin F5 | GND — Ground reference |
| Pin F6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 1 |
| Pin G1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin G2 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin G3 | VCCIO2 — I/O bank 2 voltage supply |
| Pin G4 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin G5 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin G6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin H1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 3 |
| Pin H2 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 3 |
| Pin H3 | GND — Ground reference |
| Pin H4 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin H5 | VCCINT — Core voltage supply (1.5 V) |
| Pin H6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin J1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 3 |
| Pin J2 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 3 |
| Pin J3 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 3 |
| Pin J4 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin J5 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin J6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin K1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 3 |
| Pin K2 | GND — Ground reference |
| Pin K3 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 3 |
| Pin K4 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 3 |
| Pin K5 | GND — Ground reference |
| Pin K6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 2 |
| Pin L1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 3 |
| Pin L2 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 3 |
| Pin L3 | VCCIO3 — I/O bank 3 voltage supply |
| Pin L4 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 3 |
| Pin L5 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 3 |
| Pin L6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 3 |
| Pin M1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin M2 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin M3 | GND — Ground reference |
| Pin M4 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 3 |
| Pin M5 | VCCINT — Core voltage supply (1.5 V) |
| Pin M6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 3 |
| Pin N1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin N2 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin N3 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin N4 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin N5 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin N6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin P1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin P2 | GND — Ground reference |
| Pin P3 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin P4 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin P5 | GND — Ground reference |
| Pin P6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin R1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin R2 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin R3 | VCCIO4 — I/O bank 4 voltage supply |
| Pin R4 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin R5 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin R6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin T1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin T2 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin T3 | GND — Ground reference |
| Pin T4 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin T5 | VCCINT — Core voltage supply (1.5 V) |
| Pin T6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin U1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin U2 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin U3 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin U4 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin U5 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin U6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin V1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin V2 | GND — Ground reference |
| Pin V3 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin V4 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin V5 | GND — Ground reference |
| Pin V6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin W1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin W2 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin W3 | VCCIO4 — I/O bank 4 voltage supply |
| Pin W4 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin W5 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin W6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin Y1 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin Y2 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin Y3 | GND — Ground reference |
| Pin Y4 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
| Pin Y5 | VCCINT — Core voltage supply (1.5 V) |
| Pin Y6 | I/O — General purpose user I/O, bank 4 |
Safe Operating Area (SOA) & Thermal Characteristics
No official SOA curve available for this digital IC. Always operate within absolute maximum ratings specified in the datasheet. Ensure adequate cooling and derate as needed.
Typical Applications
EP1C12F324C8 is suitable for 6 applications: Industrial Motor Control, Video Processing Pipelines, Telecommunications Line Cards, ASIC Prototyping, Consumer Electronics Display Controllers, Test and Measurement Instrumentation.
Industrial Motor Control
The EP1C12F324C8 fits industrial motor control applications because its 12,060 logic elements and 2 PLLs can simultaneously implement PWM generation, quadrature encoder interfaces, and field-oriented control (FOC) state machines for multi-axis servo drives. With 249 user I/O pins, the device can interface with multiple Hall sensors, resolver feedback, gate drivers, and isolated communication ports. The 275 MHz internal Fmax supports deterministic PWM frequencies up to 100 kHz with fine resolution. Compared to a microcontroller DSP, this FPGA delivers parallel processing latency under 100 ns for current-loop control, improving torque ripple. Design tip: instantiate closed-loop control at 20 kHz while dedicating spare logic to safety monitoring and overcurrent protection.
Recommended
Video Processing Pipelines
The EP1C12F324C8 is well-suited to mid-resolution video processing because its 12,060 logic elements can implement real-time color space conversion, scaling, and deinterlacing for SDTV or scaled 720p streams. The 239,616 bits of embedded M4K memory serve as line buffers and frame buffers for temporal filters, while the 2 PLLs generate pixel clocks at 27 MHz, 74.25 MHz, and 148.5 MHz. The 249 I/O pins accommodate 24-bit RGB plus control signals and sync. Compared to ASSP video processors, this FPGA offers configurable algorithms field-updatable in-circuit, which matters for evolving broadcast standards. Design tip: use DDR SDRAM external memory to buffer frame-rate conversion while keeping logic utilization under 80%.
Recommended
Telecommunications Line Cards
The EP1C12F324C8 suits telecom line-card glue logic where it implements protocol bridging, time-slot switching, and SERDES aggregation across LVDS channels up to 640 Mbps. Its 12,060 LEs handle multi-channel HDLC framing, E1/T1 termination, and ATM cell segmentation while leaving logic headroom for OAM processing. The 130 nm process and 1.5 V core deliver reasonable power efficiency for always-on central-office deployments. The 249 I/Os aggregate multiple backplane buses, status LEDs, and configuration EEPROM interfaces. Design tip: pair with an external PHY such as an Intel/Altera ALT2SG transceiver and configure via EPCS4 serial flash for in-system reprogramming.
Recommended
ASIC Prototyping
The EP1C12F324C8 is widely used as an ASIC prototyping vehicle because its 12,060 logic elements map efficiently to gate-level ASIC netlists up to approximately 200K ASIC gates after synthesis overhead. Engineers can validate RTL against the prototype before committing to mask costs, reducing tape-out risk. The 324-FBGA package exposes enough I/O to verify real-world interfaces including DDR, USB, and Ethernet MAC glue. The Quartus II toolchain provides synthesis, place-and-route, and timing analysis that closely matches ASIC sign-off methodology. Design tip: instantiate multiple FPGAs in a prototyping array (chip-to-chip LVDS) for ASIC designs exceeding 200K gates.
Recommended
Consumer Electronics Display Controllers
The EP1C12F324C8 fits consumer display controllers for printers, kiosks, and digital signage where it implements timing generation, image scaling, and overlay blending. Its 12,060 LEs can manage LVDS panel interfaces up to 1080p while dedicating logic to touch-screen controllers and backlight PWM dimming. The 130 nm process keeps die cost low enough for consumer-tier pricing, and the FBGA-324 footprint integrates into slim device form factors. Design tip: use the dedicated PLL to synthesize pixel clocks from a single 27 MHz reference crystal, simplifying BOM and EMC compliance.
Recommended
Test and Measurement Instrumentation
The EP1C12F324C8 is well-suited to bench-top test equipment because it can implement custom protocol analyzers, logic analyzers, and pattern generators with deterministic latency. The 12,060 logic elements handle parallel stimulus generation across up to 249 channels, while the 239,616 bits of embedded RAM capture deep traces for protocol debugging. The 2 PLLs synthesize multiple clock domains needed for mixed-signal test (I2C, SPI, UART, parallel bus). Design tip: pair with a soft-core processor (Nios II) running uClinux for high-level test sequencer scripting while offloading time-critical capture to dedicated logic.
Recommended
Recommended Products Summary
Engineering reference data for EP1C12F324C8 — comparison, design guidance, and compliance information.
Selection Guide
Comparison with Alternatives
| Parameter | This Product | EP1C12F324C8N | EP1C12F324C7N | EP1C12F324C6N | EP1C12F324C7 | EP1C12F324C6 | EP1C12F324C6AA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brand | Intel (formerly Altera) | Intel | Intel | Intel | Intel | Intel | Intel |
| Package | 324-FBGA (19x19 mm, 1.0 mm pitch) | 324-FBGA - same | 324-FBGA - same | 324-FBGA - same | 324-FBGA - same | 324-FBGA - same | 324-FBGA - same |
| Logic Elements | 12060 | 12060 | 12060 | 12060 | 12060 | 12060 | 12060 |
| Speed Grade (Internal Fmax) | C8 (~275 MHz) | C8 (~275 MHz) | C7 (~405 MHz, +47%) | C6 (~320 MHz, +16%) | C7 (~405 MHz, +47%) | C6 (~320 MHz, +16%) | C6 (~320 MHz, +16%) |
| Terminal Finish | Leaded (SnPb) | Lead-free (matte Sn) | Lead-free (matte Sn) | Lead-free (matte Sn) | Leaded (SnPb) | Leaded (SnPb) | Leaded (SnPb) |
| Embedded Memory (bits) | 239616 | 239616 | 239616 | 239616 | 239616 | 239616 | 239616 |
| User I/O Pins | 249 | 249 | 249 | 249 | 249 | 249 | 249 |
| Operating Temperature Range | 0C to +85C (commercial) | 0C to +85C (commercial) | 0C to +85C (commercial) | 0C to +85C (commercial) | 0C to +85C (commercial) | 0C to +85C (commercial) | 0C to +85C (automotive/aero processing) |
| Lifecycle Status | Obsolete | Obsolete | Obsolete | Obsolete | Obsolete | Obsolete | Obsolete |
Key Differentiators
- Mid-density 12,060 LE position with 249 user I/O (vs EP1C6Q240C8N (smaller Cyclone I))
- FBGA-324 package supports maximum Cyclone I I/O count (vs EP1C12F256C8 (256-FBGA variant))
- Cyclone I family cost-optimized 130 nm architecture (vs Modern Cyclone IV E (EP4CE6) in EQFP-144)
Design Notes
The 324-FBGA package has a 1.0 mm ball pitch, requiring a 6-layer or higher PCB with microvia technology (laser-drilled or staggered vias) for breakout routing. Use an HDI stack-up with 0.4 mm via pad and 0.2 mm drill for inner-row balls. Matched-length impedance control (50 ohm single-ended, 100 ohm differential) is required for LVDS and DDR interfaces. Per the Intel Cyclone device handbook, maintain continuous reference planes under the BGA escape region to prevent impedance discontinuities.
Estimated: Based on the Cyclone I family datasheet, the EP1C12F324C8 quiescent core current is approximately 500 mA at 1.5 V with all logic resources active. With 4 I/O banks each drawing up to 100 mA at 3.3 V, total worst-case power dissipation reaches approximately 2.5 W. Design a 1.5 V regulator with at least 1 A headroom and use low-ESR decoupling (one 100 uF bulk + ten 0.1 uF ceramics distributed across the BGA footprint) to minimize VCCINT ripple below 50 mV.
The EP1C12F324C8 requires external configuration memory (EPCS1, EPCS4, or compatible serial flash) for SRAM-based boot - do not assume the device powers up programmed. Ensure JTAG chain integrity by including a 10 kohm pull-up on TCK and TMS to VCCIO of the bank hosting the JTAG pins. Configuration errors are the #1 field-debugging issue; verify the configuration file (.sof or .pof) version matches the device ID before debugging logic issues.
Place the configuration EPCS flash within 50 mm of the FPGA DATA0/DCLK pins to minimize signal integrity issues. Route DCLK as a 50 ohm impedance-controlled trace and avoid routing DATA0 over split power planes. For multi-FPGA designs using JTAG chaining, include a TAP controller bypass jumper so individual devices can be isolated during bring-up. Reserve GPIO pins near the FPGA JTAG bank for unused-but-programmed I/O standards to prevent input-floating oscillations.
Compliance Information
RoHS compliance for the C8 variant is per DigiKey product listing; the original leaded terminal finish is non-RoHS, and the C8N variant provides lead-free RoHS compliance. Halogen-free status was not specified in the verified data. AEC-Q100 is not applicable for this commercial-grade FPGA. For automotive applications, EP1C12F324C6AA offers aerospace/automotive processing.
