Mike Seither
Xilinx, Inc.
(408) 879-6557
mike.seither@xilinx.com

John Schewel
Virtual Computer Corp.
(818) 342-8294
jas@vcc.com

Jane Donaldson
Annapolis Micro Systems, Inc.
(410) 841-2514
jdonald@malibu.ea.net

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SAN JOSE, Calif., March 17, 1997--Xilinx, Inc., (NASDAQ:XLNX) today announced it is working with third-party developers to market the industry's first development system for reconfigurable processing.

The board-level system for Pentium PCs is based on a reference design developed by Xilinx and licensed to a number of companies active in the Xilinx Reconfigurable Developers Program. The development system consists of a PCI add-in board that uses the Xilinx XC6216 Reconfigurable Processing Unit (RPU) the Xilinx XACTstep 6000 design and implementation software, and additional software such as hardware description languages provided by individual resellers.

The XC6216 features a dedicated interface that enables the programmable Xilinx device to work in close concert with other microprocessors and be partially or fully reconfigured in microseconds. The development systems, which are targeted at hardware and software engineers interested in exploring reconfigurable processing applications, will be sold and supported by the third-party developers.

Reconfigurable processing is quickly moving from a niche to a commercially mainstream technology and will be of particular interest to system designers who want to apply reconfigurable features to advanced applications," said Bill Carter, vice president and chief technology officer at Xilinx. "We believe the most appropriate way to develop this market is to work closely with experienced partners who are in the reconfigurable processing business and therefore in the best position to help customers understand how to put this technology to practical use."

Carter said the XC6216 provides three essential ingredients to optimize reconfiguration in system design: a fast and efficient microprocessor interface, the ability of the device to be partially reconfigured, and an open architecture for creating open development systems and standards.

The XC6216, the first member of the Xilinx XC6200 product family, provides in-system reconfiguration speeds that are 1,000 times faster than typical field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). FPGAs are in use today in a number of reconfigurable applications that include communications, audio, video, image processing and digital signal processing. But unlike FPGA devices, the XC6200 architecture features a dedicated interface that allows applications to communicate directly with other 8-, 16- or 32-bit microprocessors or microcontrollers. Those applications could include interfaces to external hardware and peripherals, glue logic or custom processors.

The Xilinx XC6216 features an open architecture that on the hardware side provides developers with full access to all internal cells and how the configuration store system operates. Each internal cell contains a computation unit capable of simultaneously implementing one of a set of logic level functions. On the software side, an open architecture supports industry standards such as EDIF and VHDL. The structure of the XC6216 family is simple, hierarchical, symmetrical and regular. Packaged as part of a complete development system, the XC6216 is easily accessible, even to novice designers.

The reconfigurable processing development systems are now available from both Annapolis Micro Systems, Inc., Annapolis, Md., and Virtual Computer Corp., Reseda, Calif., and are priced under $1,000. They include the Xilinx XACTstep 6000 mapping and place and route software as well as a VHDL elaborator that changes standard VHDL into EDIF format.

The Annapolis FIREFLYTM development system will be available in versions with either 512K or 2Mbytes of SRAM beginning in late March. Annapolis also will provide training and customer application development for the XC6200. For more information, visit the Annapolis Web site: http://www.annapmicro.com.

Virtual Computer's H.O.T. WorksTM development system is available now and is initially being offered with 512K on-board SRAM and is bundled with several software tools such as Lola, a hardware description language for synchronous digital circuits. Virtual Computer also offers courses. For more details, visit the Virtual Computer Web site: http://www.vcc.com.

Founded in 1984, Xilinx is the world's largest supplier of programmable logic solutions comprising 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, peripherals, telecommunications, networking, industrial control, instrumentation, consumer and high reliability/military markets. For more information on Xilinx, Inc. access: http://www.xilinx.com.

Xilinx is a registered trademark of Xilinx, Inc. All XC-prefix product designations, and XACTstep are trademarks of Xilinx, Inc. Other brands or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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