Company expects to fuel further expansion into $22.4B ASIC/ASSP/PLD market with new family of domain-optimized FPGAs
SAN JOSE, Calif., May 15, 2006 – Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX), the world’s leading supplier of programmable solutions, today unveiled its new Virtex™-5 family of domain-optimized field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), built upon the industry’s most advanced 65-nanometer (nm) triple-oxide technology, breakthrough new ExpressFabric™ technology and proven ASMBL™ architecture. In a related announcement today, Xilinx announced initial shipments of the Virtex-5 LX Platform with future platforms to roll out over the next 18 months.
Key design team innovations in process technology, architecture and product development methodology have led to unprecedented performance and density gains with Virtex-5 FPGAs – at speeds on average 30 percent higher and 65 percent increased capacity over previous generation 90-nm FPGAs – while reducing dynamic power consumption by 35 percent, maintaining the same low static power and consuming 45 percent less area.
The Virtex-5 family represents the fifth generation in the award-winning Virtex product line for Xilinx. Since its introduction in 1998, the Virtex Series has emerged as the industry’s number one choice in high-performance FPGAs with over $4B in cumulative revenues. With today’s news, more designers than ever will benefit from the inherent flexibility and cost advantages of Xilinx FPGAs, fueling further expansion for the Company into the $22.4B* high-performance segment of the total ASIC/ASSP/PLD market.
“By exploiting 65-nm triple-oxide process along with the unique advantages of our ASMBL architecture and revolutionary new ExpressFabric technology, the Virtex design team has delivered the highest level of performance, density, feature integration of any FPGA on the market today,†said Wim Roelandts, Xilinx chairman, president and CEO. “Increasingly at the heart of the system, our platform FPGAs are deployed in a myriad of applications ranging from networking and telecom infrastructure to wireless base stations and multimedia/video/audio applications. We’re confident that the trend toward broad adoption of FPGAs in advanced system-level applications over traditional custom ICs will accelerate with delivery of our new Virtex-5 family.â€
Virtex-5 Family – the Ultimate System Integration Platform
Based on the successful ASMBL (Advanced Silicon Modular Block) architecture, the Virtex-5 family includes four domain-optimized platforms for high-speed logic, digital signal processing (DSP), embedded processing and serial connectivity applications. Through the ASMBL architectural approach, Xilinx offers a greater selection of devices, enabling customers to select the right mix of features and capabilities for their specific design. As with the Virtex-4 family, customers can choose from a variety of Virtex-5 device options within each platform for the optimal mix of features to match end product requirements. Initial devices of the Virtex-5 LX Platform are shipping now with each of the remaining platforms slated for the second half of 2006 through the first half of 2007:
“Triple Play†Network Infrastructure Overhaul to Drive Demand for Programmability
Given the inherent performance and flexibility advantages of its new Virtex-5 family and the Company’s historical strength in communications, Xilinx is poised to play a pivotal role with its customers in enabling the next wave of the Internet – the convergence of voice, video, and data on the same network, widely known as “triple playâ€.
In anticipation of growing consumer demand for new mobile and residential services, revitalization of today’s network infrastructure has become a global electronics industry imperative. This trend will afford semiconductor companies a tremendous growth opportunity across a wide range of end market segments, including wired/wireless communications, consumer, audio-video broadcast, storage and servers, and test and measurement.
Experts agree that “triple play†is likely to drive a spike in demand for high-performance platform FPGAs, given their adaptability to evolving consumer requirements, changing industry standards, time-to-market and cost pressures, and the need to future-proof systems.
“Bandwidth aggregation requirements are expected to increase 10-fold or more, ultimately requiring 20-50 Mbps per channel in order to deliver these new services,†said Bob Wheeler, senior analyst at The Linley Group. “High performance programmable solutions such as the Virtex-5 family will play a key role for packet processing and transport in this communications infrastructure overhaul.â€
According to Alan Varghese of ABI Research, “Future SoC solutions must combine flexibility with very high-performance DSP, processing and connectivity capabilities in order to meet the aggregation bandwidth requirements of transporting voice, video and data. An example of such a solution is the Xilinx Virtex-5 family, which positions the Company well to expand its reach into these upcoming market opportunities.â€
Ultimate System Integration Platform Meets Stringent Customer Requirements
Xilinx engaged with hundreds of system designers worldwide to define its next-generation Virtex-5 product line and to build key features into each platform that address designers’ need for higher performance, lower power, high-bandwidth interfaces, lower system cost and shorter design cycles. Among the key innovations of the Virtex-5 family available with the Virtex-5 LX Platform include:
Partner Solutions Available Today
Based on the vast partner ecosystem developed through nearly a decade of Virtex Series innovation, Xilinx has collaborated closely with partners to produce design tools and evaluation boards specifically designed to optimize the new features of the Virtex-5 architecture. (See related partner news today from Synplicity, Mentor Graphics and Magma Design Automation.)
Virtex-5 Family Device & Software Availability
Delivery of new Virtex-5 family FPGAs has commenced with the availability of the initial LX devices, and will continue through the first half of 2007. Early access software for Virtex-5 FPGAs is available now, with general availability in June 2006. The Xilinx EasyPathâ„¢ program, which offers an additional risk-free cost-reduction of up to 75 percent for high volume production, will be available to customers for each Virtex-5 platform upon volume production. For more information about the Virtex-5 FPGA family, go to: www.xilinx.com/virtex5.
About Xilinx
Xilinx is the worldwide leader in complete programmable logic solutions. For more information, visit www.xilinx.com.
*Xilinx Estimate of high performance segment of total ASIC/ASSP/PLD market as defined by iSuppli (Dec ’05)