Xilinx and Hitachi Information & Communication Engineering Announce New Virtex-6 FPGA-Based LogicBench Series Platform for System-Level Design Verification in Japan

New platform for Japanese domestic market slashes embedded system development time, delivers 2.4X logic density over previous Virtex FPGA-based LogicBench generation

SAN JOSE, Calif., May 13, 2010 -- Xilinx K.K., the Japanese subsidiary of the world's leading supplier of programmable platforms, Xilinx, Inc. (Nasdaq: XLNX), andHitachi Information & Communication Engineering, Ltd., today announced a new LogicBench(R) series. LogicBench is proven system-level design verification platform. The new series uses Xilinx(R) Virtex(R)-6 LX760, the fastest and highest performance FPGA, and other Virtex-6 FPGA sub-families. Hitachi Information & Communication Engineering also launched sales for the Japanese domestic market today.

Hitachi Information & Communication Engineering will exhibit and give demonstrations of the new LogicBench series and its VirtualTurbo(R)-III hardware-software co-development platform at the 13th Embedded Systems Expo and Conference (ESEC) from May 12 through 14 at Tokyo Big Sight (Booth No. East Hall 38-7).

LogicBench series are verification platforms for algorithm design, large-scale integration (LSI) feature testing, hardware-software integration testing, FPGA prototyping system verification, and all other system design processes. By combining system-level modeling technology, it enables architecture exploration for LSI development and advanced software development from an early stage and provides an ideal prototyping environment for developing image-processing, network, and other devices requiring complex algorithms. Since its first release in 1998, over 500 LogicBench modules for about 60 sites have been sold, making it one of the most popular platforms in Japan's prototyping market. Virtex-6 is the sixth generation of Xilinx's flagship Virtex FPGAs designed into the LogicBench series.

"Growing ASIC development risks in the prototyping market are prompting increased use of FPGAs for prototyping and, likewise, mass production," said Masahiro Yamada, general manager of the DesignBench System Solution Department, Embedded Technology Division, Hitachi Information & Communication Engineering. "The latest LogicBench series incorporating Virtex-6 FPGA provides 2.4X the logic density of the previous generation, facilitating the building of large-scale prototyping environments that are in demand now. Since the greater scale and speed it offers should result in wider usage for algorithm verification at upstream design stages and other applications, we anticipate that the new LogicBench series will generate about 1.2 billion yen worth of business annually."

"Hitachi Information & Communication Engineering has adopted our FPGAs in five generations of LogicBench," said Sam Rogan, president of Xilinx K.K. "Its development teams know a great deal about development environments, and their ability to provide solid solutions is rated very highly in the prototyping market. We'll continue to align with Hitachi Information & Communication Engineering to enable further reductions in large-scale LSI development time and provide other benefits to the industry."

The Virtex-6 LX760 device is a key component of the new LogicBench series, offering unrivaled performance and speed, and ideally suited for any application requiring intensive computational performance and high logic density. For example, the new large-capacity device enables designers to use FPGAs to prototype or emulate a greater range of LSI designs. Virtex-6 LX760 device offers a higher I/O count than competing FPGAs to simplify partitioning of large LSI logic across multiple FPGAs. In addition, Virtex-6 LX760 device provides flexible SelectIO(TM) technology and 25,920 kbit Block RAM to meet system-leveled verification as well as advanced verification of applications.

Main features of the new LogicBench series

Model	LogicBench Virtex-6 4 FPGA module	LogicBench Virtex-6 2 FPGA module	VirtualTurbo-III PCI Express® board
FPGAs	Virtex-6 LX760 FPGA x 4	Virtex-6 LX760 FPGA x 1 Virtex-6 LX550T FPGA x 1	Virtex-6 LX550T FPGA x 1 Virtex-6 LX240T FPGA x1
Implementable Logic density	Scale of 24M ASIC gates (2.4x current products)	Scale of 10M ASIC gates	Sale of 5M ASIC gates
Board	- 40-layer high-density printed circuit board (120mm X 140mm) with direct wiring with inter-signal loss cue, SI-optimized design - 500MHz signal connection speed between FPGAs (2.5x faster than the previous generation)		- Support for up to eight PCI Express® Gen2 lanes - To be used as LogicBench base board
Memory	-	Large-capacity DDR3-SDRAM	Large-capacity DDR3-SDRAM
Interfaces	High-speed LVDS	Industry daughter card standard FMC (FPGA mezzanine card)	- Industry daughter card standard FMC (FPGA mezzanine card) - PC interoperation option available (see note)
Applications	Ideal for mobile device base-band processing, development prototyping of multi-processor and other ultra-large-scale ASIC applications	Ideal for verification of communications, image processing, and other memory-intensive processes running in realtime	- Hardware–software co-development - Accelerating algorithm design and logical simulations

Note: Transactor API available for C/C++ program, logical simulation, (TLM2.0 interface-compliant) SystemC simulation, and virtual prototyping environments

Visit Hitachi Information & Communication Engineering's website for additional LogicBench series details, including pricing and availability for shipment within the Japanese domestic market: http://www.hitachi-jten.co.jp/products/logicbench/.

About Hitachi Information & Communication Engineering

Hitachi Information & Communication Engineering, Ltd. provides one-stop services from the evaluation of specifications through to the design, verification trial, and manufacture of boards and systems, LSIs, and FPGAs. The company supplies embedded system development and verification solutions to customers in a broad range of fields by leveraging the synergies derived from the abundant experience of its in-house design and verification engineers and its field-proven LogicBench system-level development and verification platform, which obviates the need to reproduce ultra-high density LSIs of the several-million- to 10-million-gate class. For more information, visit Hitachi Information & Communication Engineering's website at http://www.hitachi-jten.co.jp/.

About Xilinx

Xilinx is the world's leading provider of programmable platforms. For more information, visit http://www.xilinx.com/.