Xilinx Targets $2 Billion High-Performance DSP Market With FPGA Industry's First Application-Optimized Solution Roadmaps

Xilinx extends leadership in DSP with market-tailored solutions built on industry-leading FPGA performance, implementation tools and ecosystem support

GSPx,SANTA CLARA, Calif., October 24, 2005 – Building upon its proven track record of success in digital signal processing (DSP), Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) unveiled a wide-reaching strategy and set of product roadmaps to address the $2 billion high performance DSP market. Under the leadership of the Xilinx DSP Division, the Company’s customer-driven strategy is setting a new direction with application-optimized XtremeDSP™ solutions. Xilinx is initially targeting high-growth digital communications; multimedia, video and imaging (MVI); and defense systems segments, which combined represent more than 80 percent of the high-performance DSP market.

The Xilinx® XtremeDSP roadmaps encompass core technologies ─ such as OFDM for the digital communications and defense segments and video codecs for MVI applications ─ needed to deliver pre-packaged, easy-to-use development solutions tailored for each of the target markets. These solutions integrate specialized hardware platforms, system-level application knowledge, software algorithms and intellectual property (IP) libraries, and are supported by robust software tools specifically designed for efficient implementation of DSP algorithms in an FPGA device.

Also key to the Company’s DSP strategy is its ongoing collaboration with market leaders Texas Instruments and The MathWorks to address the growing trends toward FPGA-DSP co-processing platforms and tightly integrated tool flows for algorithmic development and design implementation.

“We’ve listened closely to our customers and invested heavily in technologies and expertise that align with our long-term vision and market-focused product strategies,” said Omid Tahernia, vice president and general manager of the DSP Division at Xilinx. “These efforts are the fundamental pillars and driving force behind our XtremeDSP roadmaps, and enable us to deliver highly optimized DSP solutions that meet the specialized needs of high-end applications and fill the performance gap left by traditional DSP approaches.”

FPGAs well-positioned to address a growing opportunity
Market research firm Forward Concepts forecasts that the high performance segment of the DSP market will grow at 20 percent CAGR between 2005 and 2009. The firm predicts much of that growth will come from increased adoption of programmable devices, such as the Xilinx Virtex™-4 SX family of Platform FPGAs.

“Several key market segments are driving growth in high performance DSP, and we have re-aligned our segmentation model to reflect the fact that reconfigurable products target a sizable portion of this high-end DSP segment. Forward Concepts estimates that $2B of the high performance DSP market can be addressed by the performance and flexibility of FPGA-based DSP solutions,” said Will Strauss, president of Forward Concepts.

Xilinx XtremeDSP solutions answer the challenge
The XtremeDSP roadmaps add new and specialized capabilities that make Xilinx solutions an even better fit for high-performance, application-specific system development. For digital communications, they will provide advanced algorithms for OFDM/A and W-CDMA standards that are evolving to support MIMO antenna schemes and increasingly sophisticated baseband and radio subsystems sporting interference cancellation and multi-user detection schemes. Solutions for access points and picocells will demonstrate the high level of integration required for low cost, flexible products.

The MVI roadmap addresses needs in a wide range of segments, including consumer, automotive, broadcast, enterprise IT, surveillance, and medical. Key components in this area are development platforms for accelerating video/image processing system design, advanced video codecs for standard and high definition applications (e.g., H.264 encoding), and a comprehensive video IP library. Xilinx also announced separately today the release of the first in a series of MVI-related deliverables and solutions. http://www.xilinx.com/prs_rls/dsp/05102dsp_roadmap.htm

The defense systems roadmap targets market segments such as military communications, intelligence, and sensors. In particular, Xilinx will focus on applications including software-defined radio, wideband analysis, direction finding, jamming, radar and sonar. Key solutions span the spectrum from enabling technologies, such as partial reconfiguration to custom waveforms and components, as well as pre-configured JTRS development kits, complete with an entire Software Communications Architecture (SCA) operating environment and tool suite for waveform development.

Faster, Easier High Performance DSP Design
The XtremeDSP roadmaps also continue to enhance the full suite of design and verification software solutions offered by Xilinx, including new releases of the System Generator for DSP and Integrated Software Environment™ FPGA tools. These will be integrated with robust IP libraries and development boards to deliver complete development kits optimized for digital communications, MVI and defense applications.

Xilinx’s DSP silicon platforms offer the industry’s most compelling DSP performance per dollar solution. The Virtex-4 SX family delivers the highest performance, lowest power DSP solutions by combining an optimal ratio of XtremeDSP slices, memory, and logic tuned to specific customer applications. This tuned architecture enables 48 percent higher performance as compared to alternative FPGA-based DSP solutions and over 10x higher performance than programmable DSP solutions, providing an effective co-processing platform for DSP processor-based systems. It also enables a low power implementation that consumes 50 percent less power than other FPGA solutions. For high-volume DSP applications, the Spartan™-3 family of 90-nanometer Platform FPGAs provide the lowest priced high performance DSP solutions, especially when used as co-processors for DSP applications.

About Xilinx
Xilinx is the worldwide leader in complete programmable logic solutions. For more information, visit www.xilinx.com.

Contact Xilinx, Inc.

Fill out this form for contacting a Xilinx, Inc. representative.

Your Name:

Your E-mail address:

Your Company address:

Your Phone Number:

Write your message: