Ann Duft
Xilinx, Inc
(408) 879-4726
ann.duft@xilinx.com

Frankie Borison
Oak Ridge Public Relations
(408) 253-5042
frankie@oakridge.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SAN JOSE, Calif., August 25, 1997--Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX) today announced delivery of the next version of implementation software, Xilinx Alliance Series version 1.3, and high-volume production of the entire high-density, high-performance Xilinx XC4000XL FPGA family. The software together with the ten members of the XC4000XL FPGA family yields the industry’s highest clock rates and highest-density digital designs.

"Earlier this year, our roadmap outlined the Xilinx high-end solutions and we’re seeing wide-spread customer acceptance of our XC4000XL architecture and Alliance Series software," said Wim Roelandts, Xilinx president and chief executive officer. "These solutions are allowing our customers to move quickly to 3.3-volt designs in order to have access to the lowest power and highest performance in the industry’s largest devices while setting the standard for high-density programmable logic design."

Next version of implementation software…

Alliance Series 1.3 software also includes new advanced place-and-route software that delivers incremental design capabilities called SMARTguide software. These Xilinx-exclusive capabilities leverage results from previous design iterations to reduce runtimes and shorten design iterations to less than ten minutes. As engineers design complex circuits incrementally, SMARTguide software allows them to work in their preferred methodology. SMARTguide enhancements in Alliance Series 1.3 software include timing repeatability and synthesis-based incremental design results.

Increases designer productivity…

Alliance Series 1.3 software delivers maximum design performance and EDA vendor integration advantages. Xilinx premier EDA partnerships have increased synthesis quality of results along with enhancing the adoption of HDL FPGA simulation methodologies.

Alliance Series 1.3 software delivers new structured placement algorithms developed to automatically optimize the alignment of busses using tri-state buffers, as well as enhancements to the circuit packing algorithms. Additionally, improvements in timing driven place-and-route capabilities increase performance 15 percent. This combination ensures higher device utilization and design performance through push-button flows.

Advances in ease-of-use, and…

Alliance Series 1.3 software features many ease-of-use improvements such as version and revision control, incremental installation capabilities, improved online documentation, improved error messaging, design compatibility / conversion tools and Internet-based technical support and licensing. Additionally, Xilinx offers a new training course on the Alliance Series 1.3 tools. For more information on training courses contact the Xilinx Education Registrar at (408) 879-5090.

Supports mixed technology/vendor design flows

Alliance Series 1.3 software has improved design flow capabilities provided through standards support such as EDIF, SDF, VHDL (VITAL) and Verilog. New simplified product configurations include interface kits and design methodologies for key vendors. These kits ensure easy integration of the Alliance Series 1.3 software into mixed-vendor design environments and allow designers to employ point technologies from multiple EDA vendors to meet their specific design requirements. Alliance Series 1.3 software supports all premier EDA vendors such as Aldec, Cadence, Exemplar, OrCAD, Model Technology, Mentor Graphics, Metamor, Synplicity, Synopsys, VeriBest and Viewlogic.

Industry’s fastest FPGA: the XC4000XL-1 family

Alliance Series 1.3 software supports the XC4000XL FPGA family manufactured using advanced 0.35-micron process technology. The devices range in density from 466 to 7448 logic cells (5,000 to 180,000 logic gates), and are available for -3, -2, and -1 speedgrades. All ten 3.3-volt devices operate with five-volt tolerant I/Os. The XC4000XL family represents the industry’s most complete family of 3.3-volt-optimized FPGAs.

New high-speed interconnect, fast IOBs, and advanced process technology enable up to 128 MHz dual-port RAM, 92 MHz chip-to-chip I/O, and 89 MHz 12x12 multiplier. The XC4000XL family demonstrates ultra-high performance in DSP functions, such as one billion full-precision 12 x 12 multiply-accumulates (MACs) per second.
 

Alliance Series 1.3 software is available for popular PC and workstation platforms and operating systems such as Windows 95, Windows NT and Sun OS, Solaris, HP-UX. New Alliance Series pricing starts at $495 on PCs and $3,995 on workstations with evaluation software available for $99. Pricing for the HardWire ASIC versions of the XC4000XL family starts at $6.20 for the XC4005XL device in high-volume quantities. The devices are available in HQFP, BGA, and PGA packages.

Founded in 1984, Xilinx is the world's largest supplier of programmable logic solutions producing industry-leading device architectures and world class design software. Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., the company pioneered the market for field programmable gate array (FPGA) semiconductor devices that provide high integration and quick time-to market for electronic equipment manufacturers in the computer, peripheral, telecommunications, networking, industrial control, instrumentation, consumer, and high reliability/military markets. For more information on Xilinx, access the World Wide Web site at http://www.xilinx.com.

Xilinx is a registered trademark of Xilinx, Inc. All XC-prefix products, SMARTguide, HardWire, and Alliance Series referenced above are trademarks of Xilinx, Inc. Other brand or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. 

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