SAN FRANCISCO, DESIGN AUTOMATION CONFERENCE, June 15, 1998—The top executive at Xilinx, Inc., (NASDAQ:XLNX), today said that a new design verification system for complex integrated circuits demonstrates that reconfigurable computing has made the leap from the laboratory to the mainstream market.

Speaking at the Quickturn unveiling ceremony at Design Automation Conference here, Xilinx CEO and President Wim Roelandts described the new Mercury Design Verification System from Quickturn Design Systems, Inc., (NASDAQ:QKTN), which was introduced at the show today, as a breakthrough application that successfully marries field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and advanced reconfigurable computing techniques to attain unprecedented levels of design verification performance for circuit designers.

"Clearly, Quickturn has taken a major step forward in the commercialization of reconfigurable computing with its Mercury Design Verification System," Roelandts said. "Now system designers can check and verify the behavior of large circuits thousands of times faster than they could by using conventional computers. This accomplishment reinforces our belief that reconfigurable computing, carried out in programmable logic products such as the Xilinx XC4000XL FPGAs, will open up new levels of performance never before imagined."

Mercury’s SimServer option synthesizes and maps an event-driven simulation algorithm to an array of Xilinx XC4036XL FPGAs. The FPGAs are used to process all activities that can slow down the simulator, such as event detection, event queue management and other simulation overhead. Other procedures, such as behavioral modules or test benches, are mapped to RISC processors in the Mercury system. As a result, the Mercury simulation algorithm gives electronic designers the capability to continuously check and verify circuit behavior up to 10,000 times faster than otherwise possible using general purpose workstations.

"The current difficulties of verifying designs of complex integrated circuits required much more than just the ‘next generation’ emulation technology," said Keith R. Lobo, president and CEO of Quickturn. "Mercury, with its versatile set of advanced features combining simulation and emulation in one system, will accelerate system-on-chip development."

Xilinx has pioneered the field of reconfigurable computing and has established a venture fund to advance the technology. Xilinx FPGA devices are uniquely suited to reconfigurable computing because their internal architecture, which is based on SRAM memory, can be "rewired" over time to create new circuits that perform different functions. In essence, a single chip can be reprogrammed during system operation to become an infinite number of other chips.

Xilinx is the leading innovator of complete programmable logic solutions, including advanced integrated circuits, software design tools, predefined system functions delivered as cores, and unparalleled field engineering support. Founded in 1984 and headquartered in San Jose, Calif., Xilinx invented the field programmable gate array (FPGA) and commands more than half of the world market for these devices today. Xilinx solutions enable customers to reduce significantly the time required to develop products for the computer, peripheral, telecommunications, networking, industrial control, instrumentation, high-reliability/military, and consumer markets. For more information, visit the Xilinx web site at www.xilinx.com.