Newest release enables 30% faster performance, while improving overall designer productivity with new interactive timing closure technology
June 26, 2006, SAN JOSE, Calif. – Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX ) today announced immediate availability of the 8.2i Integrated Software Environment (ISE™) tool suite, the latest release of its widely-used design solution, now supporting the company’s newest line of 65nm Virtex™-5 domain-optimized FPGAs. Leveraging the high-performance features of the Virtex-5 ExpressFabric™ technology, the ISE 8.2i design environment enables 30 percent faster performance than previous generation FPGAs. The latest release also features a unique integrated timing closure environment and new productivity-enhancing features to fully exploit the performance and power advantages of Virtex-5 devices.
“The ability to meet timing budgets is the number one productivity issue facing designers today. With Virtex FPGAs more often at the heart of complex systems, it is critical that design tools help designers achieve aggressive performance goals while reducing the time spent in the design cycle,” said Bruce Talley, vice president of the Design Software Division at Xilinx. “The advanced features and performance of the Virtex-5 family can be quickly and efficiently utilized with ISE 8.2i implementation support, and our new interactive timing closure environment.”
“Mercury has used beta versions of the ISE 8.2i release to create bitstreams for Xilinx Virtex-5 devices chips. Even the beta releases have proven to be of high quality. The new tools exploit the Virtex-5 hardware features to increase the productivity of FPGA programmers as high performance is more often obtained with less effort,” said Craig Lund, chief technology officer at Mercury Computer Systems.
Performance, Productivity and Power
The rich feature set of the ISE 8.2i design suite enables designers targeting
Virtex-5 devices to meet performance goals with greater certainty and reach
design closure in less time.
- Performance: Builds upon unique ISE Fmax™ technology first
introduced with ISE 8.1i to enable industry’s fastest logic performance.
The new design suite features next-generation physical synthesis with
critical pre- and post-routing optimization for Virtex-5 designs. Enhanced
routing support for the new ExpressFabric technology reduces levels of
logic and signal delay while packing designs more efficiently.
- Productivity: Delivers an improved timing closure environment offering
tighter correlation between logical and physical design domains.
Automated cross-probing between constraint entry, timing analysis,
floorplanning and implementation reports provides greater visibility and
more efficient method for routing and debugging designs. Integration of
Xplorer into the 8.2i design flow provides designers the ability to
automatically explore various settings and constraints to significantly
improve the performance for a given design. ISE 8.2i support for device
models and pin assignments and the second generation
SparseChevron technology in Virtex-5 FPGAs greatly simplifies
PCB design.
- Power: The new Xpower™ Estimator tool ensures accurate power
estimation based on extensive Virtex-5 device characterization, thus
allowing designers to plan for their power budget in advance. Xpower
is available as a free download at www.xilinx.com/power in an
easy-to-use spreadsheet format.
Debug and Verification Options
The ISE 8.2i design suite is accompanied by the release of the ChipScope
Pro™ 8.2 debug and verification software. Available as an add-on option, the
ChipScope Pro 8.2 solution reduces verification cycles by up to 50 percent.
Also included is the newest release of the ChipScope Pro Serial IO Toolkit,
providing simplified debugging of high-speed serial IO designs for Virtex-4 FX
FPGAs.
Pricing and Availability
ISE software delivers programmable logic design solutions to over 300,000
users worldwide with an intuitive, front-to-back design environment for all Xilinx
product families, including Virtex-4 and Virtex-5 Platform FPGAs, Spartan™-3
Generation FPGAs, and CoolRunner™-II CPLDs. All versions of ISE 8.2i software
packages support Windows® 2000 and Windows XP and Linux® Red Hat®
Enterprise 3.0. ISE Foundation also supports Solaris® 2.8 and 2.9.
ISE 8.2i Foundation and ChipScope Pro 8.2 configurations are immediately
available with prices ranging from US$695 to $2495. Full-featured 60-day
evaluation versions can be downloaded from the Xilinx web site at no charge.
For more information about the ISE 8.2i
software suite, visit www.xilinx.com/ISE.
About Xilinx
Xilinx is the worldwide leader in complete programmable logic solutions.
For more information,visit www.xilinx.com.
