Xilinx Delivers Complete XtremeDSP Development Platform for Low Cost Video Development

Development kit powered by Spartan-3A DSP FPGA includes XtremeDSP and Embedded Processing Tools, reference designs, VGA camera and other hardware components

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Feb. 26, 2008 -- Xilinx, Inc., the world's leading provider of programmable solutions, today announced the immediate availability of the XtremeDSP Video Starter Kit - Spartan(TM)-3A DSP FPGA Edition, a complete development platform for video applications that require low-cost and high-performance video processing. This new kit gives designers of video applications everything they need to accelerate their development including robust video specific intellectual property (IP), reference designs, XtremeDSP and Xilinx Embedded Processing development tools, and a Spartan-3A DSP FPGA development board with video daughter card.

Designers can use the new kit to accelerate their development of high-speed video systems for cost sensitive applications including machine vision, multimedia set top box, endoscope, portable ultrasound, automotive driver assistance and other systems that require low-cost and high-DSP performance. The video development kit is part of the Xilinx XtremeDSP solution that also includes the XtremeDSP Starter Kit - Spartan-3A DSP FPGA Edition also announced today.

"Complex video systems that target FPGAs often include a combination of both DSP and embedded processing," said Dean Westman, vice president of marketing for the Processor Solutions Group at Xilinx. "Xilinx has made a considerable investment to provide a tool flow that integrates these two domains by automatically generating the hardware and software interfaces for the user. This tool flow is included in the kit along with a set of reference designs that leverage this integration to enable developers to rapidly create sophisticated video processing systems."

Video processing performance requirements in markets such as surveillance are increasing beyond the capabilities of a traditional DSP processor. FPGAs can be used in these applications as co-processors to offload performance critical processing operations or as standalone video processing engines. The parallel computing nature of the FPGA fabric supports much higher sampling rates and more data throughput than a standard digital signal processor, delivering 3 to 4x the performance along with better computational power efficiency. The fabric of the Spartan-3A DSP family is optimized for DSP and delivers industry-leading cost/performance of 20 billion multiply-accumulates per second (GMACS) for under $30.

The XtremeDSP Video Starter Kit - Spartan-3A DSP FPGA Edition includes video specific IP including a new Video Frame Buffer Controller (VFBC), three reference designs to help accelerate development, software drivers, and hardware interface support for the various I/O interfaces. This IP coupled with Spartan-3A DSP 3400A FPGA development board, cables, VGA camera and FMC-video I/O module that supports DVI input, single channel in and out composite, S-video in and out, and dual camera interfaces. The kit also comes complete with System Generator for DSP and the Xilinx Embedded Development Kit (EDK). System Generator for DSP enables the use of The Mathworks Simulink(R) and MATLAB(R) modeling environment for FPGA design. The EDK is an all-encompassing solution for designing embedded programmable systems. EDK includes the Platform Studio tools suite, embedded IP cores and the Xilinx(R) MicroBlaze(TM) embedded processor.

Pricing and Availability

The XtremeDSP Video Starter Kit - Spartan-3A DSP FPGA Edition (DO-S3ADSP-VIDEO-SK-UNI-G) is available now for $1,595. For more information, please visit http://www.xilinx.com/vsk_s3.

About Xilinx XtremeDSP Solutions

Xilinx is the world's leading supplier of high-performance reconfigurable DSP solutions optimized for performance, price and power. Xilinx XtremeDSP solutions come complete with silicon platforms, design tools, development boards and kits, reference designs and a host of signal processing IP for wireless and multimedia video applications.

The XtremeDSP silicon portfolio delivers maximum flexibility with three device platforms: the Virtex-4 SX platform with over 250 GMACS at 500MHz, Virtex-5 SXT platform for ultra-high bandwidth with over 350 GMACS at 550MHz and integrated low-power serial connectivity, and the Spartan-3A DSP platform with the most price-performance optimized devices offering over 30 GMACS at 250MHz. Detailed information is available at http://www.xilinx.com/dsp.

About Xilinx

Xilinx, Inc. (Nasdaq: XLNX) is the worldwide leader of programmable logic solutions. Additional information about Xilinx is available at http://www.xilinx.com.