SAN JOSE, Calif., September 13, (May 10) 1999May 25— Xilinx and IKOS Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX) announced today that the VirtexÔ FPGA is being designed into the IKOS fourth-generation emulators. IKOS Systems, Inc., a leading provider of design verification solutions includes among its offerings emulation systems that provide the methodology to verify huge SOC (system-on-a-chip) designs. The company unveiled its third-generation emulator (VLE-5M), which doubled the capacity of the previous generation, at the June ’99 Design Automation Conference. The capacity and performance of the Virtex FPGA is expected to more than double the capacity of the next generation IKOS emulator and reduce the price-per-gate. 

"IKOS has enjoyed a close partnership with Xilinx over the years. Our patented VirtuaLogic emulation technology allows us to take full advantage of the rapidly evolving FPGA technologies and Xilinx has continued to out perform the other FPGA providers for our application," said Ramon Nunez, president and CEO of IKOS. "Because it is a high capacity device, the Virtex FPGA allows us to design very large capacity emulators to meet our customer needs. By integrating the higher density Virtex FPGA into the existing architecture we can greatly increase the capacity with further increased performance and continue to deliver on our proven track record of providing a new higher capacity, lower cost emulation platform every 12 to 18 months." 

"We are extremely pleased to be working with IKOS and helping them to keep pace with the rapid developments in ASIC verification technology," said Xilinx president and CEO Wim Roelandts. "We plan to continue enhancing the Virtex architecture to satisfy customer requirements for ever increasing levels of density and performance. IKOS' emulation technology roadmap is well aligned with Xilinx technology and we are excited to see an EDA company applying our FPGA technology so aggressively." 

The Virtex FPGAs range from 50,000 to 1,000,000 system gates at clock speeds up to 200 MHz, and include many features that address system-level design challenges. Virtex devices are equipped with four delay locked loops (DLL), allowing for both internal and external clock synchronization with no clock skew. This results in clock-to-output delays of less than four nanoseconds. 

IKOS emulators are built upon a compact architecture utilizing over 400 FPGAs per system on up to six user-reconfigurable array boards and one system board. Each of the FPGAs on the user-reconfigurable array boards is interconnected with every other FPGA on the boards, which makes reconfigurability much easier than other FPGA-based emulation systems. 

"Reconfigurability is a key element for IKOS, our customers need to run multiple iterations of their verification tests on the emulator after each design change. This gives the user the ability to download the new design under test from a remote location," said Juergen Jaeger director of Emulation Product Management for IKOS. 

IKOS is also taking advantage of the internal memory available on the Virtex FPGA for their fourth-generation emulator in addition to the external memory used in the current generation emulator. "The obvious result of using the embedded RAM of the Virtex FPGA is an increase in the speed and efficiency of our products. The device allows us to quickly enhance the new emulator's memory capabilities while maintaining architectural and software compatibility with our current products," said Jaeger. 

The current VLE-5M emulator leverages the unique architecture design and product roadmap IKOS has implemented to deliver a new hardware platform every 12 to 18 months. Not only is the next product introduction expected to more than double the emulator capacity, it is also expected to again lower the price per gate. This will provide IKOS customers with emulation solutions to keep pace with the increasing complexity of SOC designs without incurring proportional increases in R&D expense. 

"SOC implementation for the next generation of products is quickly becoming the norm for many of the leading electronic and system companies," stated Nunez. "These companies are acknowledging that SOC verification requires a mind-shift from the traditional verification strategies. IKOS is implementing this mind-shift by offering innovation to proactively address SOC verification needs." 

Xilinx Alliance and Foundation SeriesÔ software are integrated into the IKOS’ patented VirtualLogic software. The IKOS VirtuaLogic compiler is entirely automatic and highly predictable, unlike traditional emulation systems requiring significant user intervention and pathfinding through several software programs. VirtualLogic software provides a highly reliable compile by isolating the timing variables of the FPGA from the user’s design. The emulator automatically partitions and routes into the FPGA based upon the Virtex architecture. 

With its unique technology, IKOS is able to deliver the industry’s fastest evolving emulation products while lowering the customer's investment per gate every year. This low cost is combined with ease of use, fast compile times of VirtuaLogic Emulator without specialized facilities. With this cost-performance ratio, users can achieve the results they need for today’s challenging SOC designs. 

About IKOS 

IKOS Systems, inc. (NASDAQ: IKOS) is a technology leader in high-performance design verification solutions including hardware and software simulation for language-based design, logic emulation for system integration and compatibility verification and verification services. The company’s mission is to help customers realize their high complexity electronic systems through innovative design verification solutions IKOS has a direct sales operation in North America, UK, France, Germany, and Japan, and a distribution network throughout Asia-Pacific and Israel. Corporate headquarters are located in Cupertino, California. Fore more information, visite the IKOS web site at www.ikos.com. 

About Xilinx 

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, California, Xilinx invented the field programmable gate array (FPGA) and fulfills more than half the world demand. 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.