Xilinx Delivers Highest Performance DSP Solutions for Multimedia, Video and Imaging Applications

FPGA Leader's XtremeDSP MVI Solutions Simplify Development of Real-Time Video Systems and Take Design Performance to New Levels

GSPx, SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 24, 2005 -- Xilinx, Inc. (Nasdaq: XLNX) today announced the release of application-optimized Xilinx(R) XtremeDSP(TM) solutions that accelerate development of multimedia, video and imaging (MVI) systems and extend the performance of digital signal processing (DSP) processor-based applications. This market-driven approach underscores the Company's commitment to DSP by delivering comprehensive development solutions with the industry's highest performance FPGA devices, an integrated design environment with robust tools, and easy-to-use pre-packaged development kits.

The MVI-tailored solutions represent the first in a series of products to be introduced with the Xilinx XtremeDSP roadmaps that were also unveiled today in a separate announcement. Xilinx is raising the bar on performance and ease-of-use with the: Video Starter Kit Virtex(TM)-4 SX35 (VSK-4VSX35) featuring a streamlined version of the new 8.1i System Generator for DSP tool suite; Video co-processing XEVM642 development kit; and new MPEG4 encoder and decoder intellectual property (IP) cores.

"Many of our customers are already using our Virtex-II Pro and Spartan-3 Platform FPGAs for MVI applications, and have requested pre-packaged options that make the performance, power and cost advantages of our Virtex-4 SX platform even more accessible for DSP applications," said Omid Tahernia, vice president and general manager of the Digital Signal Processing Division at Xilinx. "Our new MVI kits are the direct result of this customer feedback, and enable developers to rapidly implement state-of-the-art DSP systems with the industry's highest performance."

"At Pixel Velocity, we're using the Virtex-4 SX platform to address very demanding computational requirements in real-time industrial 3D metrology and medical ultrasound applications," said David McCubbrey, chief technology officer for Pixel Velocity. "Xilinx not only continues to drive DSP performance to higher levels, but is making it easier for our development teams to leverage the competitive advantages of their programmable platforms with complete solutions specifically tailored for the markets we serve."

Comprehensive MVI-Tailored Solutions

Xilinx MVI solutions provide the programmable hardware platforms, design tools, IP and reference designs needed to kick start development of real-time video and image processing systems for a wide variety of applications, such as video broadcasting and video conferencing, surveillance cameras, medical imaging, home gateway and digital TV. These platforms can be used to develop high performance, arithmetic-intensive algorithms that are offloaded from DSP processors to boost overall system performance through efficient co-processing strategies.

"The Virtex-4 programmable technology combines high performance DSP capability with an abundance of features such as embedded cores, control processors, clock distribution, high-speed serial I/O and memory," said Hans-Joachim Koch, R&D manager at Siemens Medical Solutions. "Virtex-4 SX devices provided the ideal programmable solution for our next-generation imaging platform, enabling us to achieve the optimal performance and feature set under tight time-to-market and budget constraints."

Rapid System Configuration with Video Starter Kit

The Xilinx VSK-4VSX35 kit is a simple, yet highly functional development environment that enables developers to rapidly build and deploy video systems. Hardware components include the: Xilinx ML402-SX35 development board and video IO daughter card (VIODC); CMOS image sensor camera; cables and power adapters, as well as complete user documentation and reference designs.

The VSK-4VSX35 kit integrates limited edition releases of the System Generator for DSP and Integrated Software Environment(TM) (ISE) FPGA design tools. It also supports a wide variety of standard video interfaces such as DVI, Component Video, S-Video and SDI to facilitate video and multimedia demonstration, video algorithm development, and system integration and test. This highly optimized development platform is also an excellent environment for developing high performance algorithms that can be used to enhance existing DSP processor-based systems.

DSP Acceleration with Video Co-Processing Platform

The Xilinx Video Co-Processing Kit provides a high performance Xilinx daughter card for the Texas Instruments DM642 EVM platform. The dedicated daughter card accelerates the DSP capability of the DM642 processor with the Virtex-4 SX35 XtremeDSP engine capable of processing 77 GMACs per second. This creates a powerful DSP/FPGA co-processing platform for taking DM642 designs to higher performance levels, which enables designers to achieve higher resolutions, process multiple video streams simultaneously, and implement in real time highly complex video codecs for standard definition and/or high definition H.264 applications. The kit also provides developers with complete documentation and reference designs to jump start development.

New MPEG4 Encoder/Decoder

The MPEG4 part 2 encoder/decoder cores can handle scalable resolutions up to D1 (720 x 486) at 30 frames per second. Additionally, a host processor interface makes these cores ideal for system-on-chip integration across a broad range of MVI applications.

Pricing, Platform & Availability

The Xilinx Video Starter Kit Virtex-4 SX35 (VSK-4VSX35) and Video Co-Processing XEVM642 Development Kit will be available within 30 days for $1,495 and $1,995 US, respectively. The Xilinx MPEG4 IP cores are also immediately available, priced separately at $20,000 for the decoder and $25,000 encoder options. For complete information on Xilinx MVI solutions, visit http://www.xilinx.com/dsp.

About Xilinx

Xilinx is the worldwide leader in complete programmable logic solutions. For more information, visit http://www.xilinx.com.