Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) is the world's largest developer and fabless manufacturer of a class of reconfigurable hardware chips known as field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). It was founded by Ross Freeman (FPGA inventor), Bernie Vonderschmitt (fabless pioneer), and Jim Barnett in 1984 and was based in Silicon Valley. Today, their HQ resides in San Jose, California (USA); the European HQ is based in Dublin (Ireland) and the Asia Pacific/Japan HQ is based in Singapore. It also has offices in Austin, Texas; Longmont, Colorado; Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA); Toronto (Canada); Bangalore and Hyderabad (India). This is a copyrighted and/or trademarked logo. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... NASDAQ in Times Square, New York City. ... City nickname: Capital of Silicon Valley County Santa Clara County, California Area  - Total  - Water 461. ... Ross Freeman was the inventor of the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) and the co-founder of Xilinx, the leading FPGA developer. ... Bernard (Bernie) Vonderschmitt (October 14, 1923 – June 9, 2004) was an electrical engineer, most noted as a co-founder of leading FPGA producer Xilinx. ... Integrated circuit of Atmel Diopsis 740 System on Chip showing memory blocks, logic and input/output pads around the periphery Microchips with a transparent window, showing the integrated circuit inside. ... A field-programmable gate array or FPGA is a gate array that can be reprogrammed after it is manufactured, rather than having its programming fixed during the manufacturing — a programmable logic device. ... An Altera MAX 7000-series CPLD with 2500 gates. ... Look up revenue in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For the album by the Kaiser Chiefs see Employment (album) Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. ... A website (alternatively, Web site or web site) is a collection of Web pages, images, videos and other digital assets that is hosted on one or several Web server(s), usually accessible via the Internet, cell phone or a LAN. A Web page is a document, typically written in HTML... NASDAQ in Times Square, New York City. ... A fabless semiconductor company specializes in the design and sale of hardware devices implemented on semiconductor chips. ... Integrated circuit of Atmel Diopsis 740 System on Chip showing memory blocks, logic and input/output pads around the periphery Microchips with a transparent window, showing the integrated circuit inside. ... An Altera Stratix II GX FPGA. A field-programmable gate array is a semiconductor device containing programmable logic components called logic blocks, and programmable interconnects. ... Ross Freeman was the inventor of the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) and the co-founder of Xilinx, the leading FPGA developer. ... Bernard (Bernie) Vonderschmitt (October 14, 1923 – June 9, 2004) was an electrical engineer, most noted as a co-founder of leading FPGA producer Xilinx. ... This article is about the year. ... A view of downtown San Jose, the self-proclaimed Capital of Silicon Valley. ... For other uses, see San José. Nickname: Location of San Jose within Santa Clara County, California. ... This article is about the city in Ireland. ... Nickname: Location in the state of Texas Coordinates: , Country State Counties Travis County Government  - Mayor Will Wynn Area  - City  296. ... The City of Longmont is a home rule municipality located in Boulder County and Weld County, Colorado, United States. ... Nickname: Location in the state of New Mexico Coordinates: , Country State County Bernalillo Founded 1706 Government  - Mayor Martin Chavez Area  - City  181. ... For other uses, see Bangalore (disambiguation). ... Hyderabad or Haydarābād (Telugu: హైదరాబాదు Urdu: حیدر آباد ) is the capital city of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. ...

Technologies

Xilinx is a developer of FPGA and CPLD devices that are used in numerous applications within telecommunications, automotive, consumer, defense, and other fields. Xilinx offers device families for glue logic (CoolRunner, CoolRunner II), low-cost (Spartan), and high-end (Virtex) applications in addition to supporting devices such as PROMs. An Altera Stratix II GX FPGA. A field-programmable gate array is a semiconductor device containing programmable logic components called logic blocks, and programmable interconnects. ... An Altera MAX 7000-series CPLD with 2500 gates. ... In electronics, glue logic refers to the custom electronic circuitry needed to achive compatible interfaces between two (or more) differrent off-the-shelf integrated circuits. ... The Spartan series of low cost Field-programmable gate arrays from Xilinx, Inc. ... D23128C PROM on the board of ZX Spectrum A programmable read-only memory (PROM) or field programmable read-only memory (FPROM) is a form of digital memory where the setting of each byte is locked by a fuse or antifuse. ...

The Virtex-II Pro, Virtex-4, and Virtex-5 FPGA families are of particular interest to system-on-a-chip (SoC) designers because they can include up to two embedded IBM PowerPC cores.^[1][2] These designs are capable of running a regular embedded OS (such as Linux or vxWorks) and interfacing with custom logic implemented in the surrounding fabric. System-on-a-chip (SoC or SOC) is an idea of integrating all components of a computer system into a single chip. ... For other uses, see IBM (disambiguation) and Big Blue. ... PowerPC is a RISC microprocessor architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM. Originally intended for personal computers, PowerPC CPUs have since become popular embedded and high-performance processors as well. ... This article is about operating systems that use the Linux kernel. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ...

Xilinx develops IP cores, intended to reduce application design time. These cores range from simple functions (such as BCD encoders, counters, etc.) to complex systems (such as multi-gigabit networking cores, the Microblaze soft microprocessor, and the compact Picoblaze microcontroller). In addition, Xilinx Design Services (XDS) can create custom cores for a fee. In electronic design and electronic design automation an intellectual property block, IP-block or IP core is a unit of reusable design, the use of which has been licensed to a third party. ... In computing and electronic systems, Binary-coded decimal (BCD) is an encoding for decimal numbers in which each digit is represented by its own binary sequence. ... A gigabit is a unit of information or computer storage, abbreviated Gbit or sometimes Gb. ... The MicroBlaze is a soft processor core from Xilinx for use in Xilinx FPGAs. ... A soft microprocessor is a microprocessor core written on any hardware description language (HDL). ... The PicoBlaze is a free soft processor core from Xilinx for use in FPGAs. ...

Xilinx offers electronic design automation (EDA) tools for use with its devices. Its central product family is ISE, which offers a complete EDA flow: synthesis from Verilog or VHDL, place-and-route (PAR), and creation of the bit files that are used to configure the chip. Xilinx's Embedded Developer's Kit (EDK) supports the embedded PowerPC 405 core (found in the Virtex-II Pro and some Virtex-4 and -5 chips), and the Microblaze. Xilinx's System Generator for DSP simulates and implements high-performance DSP designs on Xilinx's FPGAs. A free version of their EDA software called 'ISE Webpack' is available for use with some of their non highperformance chips. They are the only FPGA vendor to have a free Linux version of their EDA software as well, as of 2007. PCB Layout Program Electronic design automation (EDA) is the category of tools for designing and producing electronic systems ranging from printed circuit boards (PCBs) to integrated circuits. ... Verilog is a hardware description language (HDL) used to model electronic systems. ... VHDL, or VHSIC Hardware Description Language, is commonly used as a design-entry language for field-programmable gate arrays and application-specific integrated circuits in electronic design automation of digital circuits. ... A digital signal processor (DSP) is a specialized microprocessor designed specifically for digital signal processing, generally in real-time. ... This article is about operating systems that use the Linux kernel. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ...

Xilinx San Jose HQ Building at 2001 Logic Drive

Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...

Family Lines

Xilinx has two main FPGA families: the high performance Virtex series and the low cost Spartan series. They also manufacture two CPLD lines, the CoolRunner and the 9500 series. Each model series has been released in multiple generations since their launch. A field-programmable gate array or FPGA is a gate array that can be reprogrammed after it is manufactured, rather than having its programming fixed during the manufacturing — a programmable logic device. ... An Altera MAX 7000-series CPLD with 2500 gates. ...

Spartan series

The Spartan series are low cost parts, roughly parallel to the Virtex 2 series. They are slower than the corresponding Virtex parts, and neither embedded PowerPC cores nor SerDes hardware are available.

Virtex series

The Virtex series has in addition to the normal FPGA logic fabric embedded fixed function hardware for commonly used functions such as multipliers, memories, serial transceivers and microprocessor cores. The number of multipliers range from a few tens to several hundreds, depending on the device. Likewise, the amount of block ram ranges from a few hundred kilobits to tens of megabits. While all models include some block ram and multipliers, embedded PowerPC cores and SerDes hardware are only available on select models. A SERializer/DESerializer (SERDES) is a device used in high speed communications. ...

Starting with the Virtex-4, Xilinx transitioned to having multiple versions of their product with different features, optimized for different purposes. Traditionally the only difference between the models within a series has been size and thus price.

The Virtex-4 series was introduced in 2004 and manufactured on a 1.2V, 90nm, triple-oxide process technology. PowerPC is a RISC microprocessor architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM. Originally intended for personal computers, PowerPC CPUs have since become popular embedded and high-performance processors as well. ...

The Virtex-5 series was introduced in 2006. With it, Xilinx moved from their traditional 4-input LUT design to 6-input LUTs. It is a 65nm design fabricated in 1.0V, triple-oxide process technology. A SERializer/DESerializer (SERDES) is a device used in high speed communications. ... In computer science, a lookup table is a data structure, usually an array or associative array, used to replace a runtime computation with a simpler lookup operation. ...

Older generation devices, such as the Virtex, Virtex-II, and Virtex-II Pro, are also still available, although their functionality is largely superseded by the Virtex-4 and -5.

Competition

Competitors to Xilinx include Altera, Lattice Semiconductor, Actel, Atmel, and Quicklogic. Altera headquarters in San Jose Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) is a leading manufacturer of programmable logic devices. ... Lattice Semiconductor Corporation NASDAQ: [LSCC] is a leading manufacturer of high-performance programmable logic devices (PLDs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), programmable mixed-signal and interconnect products, related software and intellectual property (IP). ... Actel Corporation (NASDAQ: ACTL) is a leader in single-chip FPGA solutions. ... Atmel ATMEGA32 microcontroller Atmel AT90S2333 microcontroller Atmel Corporation (NASDAQ: ATML) is a manufacturer of semiconductors, founded in 1984. ...

Origin of company name

The name Xilinx is representative of a FPGA: The two X's represent logic clusters and the linx represents the links or routing between the logic. The founders did not like the name Xlinx, so they added an extra 'i' and hence the name Xilinx.^[3]

References

1. ^ Virtex-II Pro datasheet
2. ^ Virtex-4 family overview
3. ^ Xilinx: Our History

External links

• Corporate website
• Xilinx history
• Xilinx JTAG page at hardware-hacking.com