SAN JOSE, Calif., February 1, 2001 – at the Home Networking Industry Forum today, Xilinx Inc., (NASDAQ:XLNX) announced Xilinx eSP, the industry's first program dedicated to accelerating the design and development of consumer products. The eSP website (http://www.xilinx.com/esp) serves as a web portal and comprehensive resource, delivering a powerful array of solutions and information in a single location. Solutions found on the site range from reference designs to intellectual property and result from collaboration with a wide range of industry leaders. The site is also a rich source of information including technology tutorials, market overviews, system block diagrams, white papers, standards updates, industry links, extensive glossaries and a directory of consultants. Additionally, there is an on-line forum that provides designers with direct access to industry experts. Initially, the site will focus on home networking and will continue to expand in the first quarter of 2001 with a second segment dedicated to Bluetooth applications.

“Xilinx eSP underscores our commitment to grow our business in new and emerging markets while providing our customers with innovative services and solutions,” said Wim Roelandts, Xilinx president and CEO. “Our position in the industry allows us to make the kind of investment required to undertake this monumental effort on behalf of our customers.”

Simplifying the Complex
A significant investment in both time and resources is typically required to review and understand complex specifications (exceeding 1,000 pages is not uncommon). In order to remain current on changing standards and protocols, designers are often required to attend meetings, necessitating a significant investment in time and travel. Xilinx eSP addresses the challenges of understanding complex standards, provides current information on existing standards, and provides extensive tutorials on new standards in an easy-to-understand format. 

“In the consumer market, it’s quite clear that being first to market isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity,” said Robert Bielby, Xilinx director of strategic applications. “Yet, while getting a product to market rapidly is important, if it’s not compliant with the latest standard, it could very well be obsolete at introduction.”

Strategic Alliances Deliver Resources
Xilinx has partnered with a wide range of industry experts, application specific standard product (ASSP) manufacturers, and intellectual property (IP) providers to develop, deliver, and support hardware reference designs for specific emerging standards.  The reference designs have been tailored to accelerate product development while addressing the flexibility, and price constraints of the targeted end applications. 

“The Xilinx eSP initiative is one of the most exciting programs that we have participated in,” said Susheel Chandra, general manager of the Inventra business unit for Mentor Graphics.  “Our USB2.0 reference design provides a great example of this as USB2.0 is a very new technology. Together we are not only educating system designers on all facets, we have developed the complete solution.  Now that’s time-to-market.”

Launching eSP with Home Networking
The eSP web portal delivers a full suite to help designers accelerate product development of home networking products. Designers will find over 3,000 pages of technical summaries on various home networking components and technologies, as well as tutorials and white papers to keep up-to-date on standards such as HomePNA, HomeRF, Wireless LAN, HomePlug, and USB. Additionally, eSP has over 400 dynamic system block diagrams and a wide range of hardware reference designs including: MP3 players and remote power meters, 1394-firewire, USB2.0, Bluetooth, and VoIP. With over 200 industry links and an on-line forum staffed by home networking experts, designers will find the eSP web portal to be the most comprehensive resource in the industry.

About Xilinx
Xilinx is the leading supplier 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 fulfills more than half of the world demand 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, aerospace, defense, and consumer markets. For more information, visit the Xilinx web site at http://www.xilinx.com.