Xilinx And Wavesat Collaborate In Development Of World's First Mini-PCI Reference Design For WiMAX

Wavesat chooses Xilinx low-cost Spartan-3E FPGA to bring flexibility and easy customization to WiMAX Mini-PCI Reference Design

SAN JOSE, Calif., October 25 , 2005 – Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) today announced that Wavesat Inc., a fabless semiconductor developer of broadband wireless chips, has chosen the Xilinx Spartan™-3E field programmable gate array (FPGA) as a key component of the world’s first mini-PCI reference design for WiMAX Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) and User Terminal applications. The high-performance features of the Spartan-3E FPGA are used to implement key functionality including a time-critical low-level Media Access Controller (MAC) block and PCI interface. With the IEEE802-16-2004 compliant WiMAX mini-PCI reference design, engineers can drastically accelerate time-to-market of emerging WiMAX equipment. Wavesat will showcase the solution at this week’s WiMAX World in Boston, October 26-28, booth #308.

Leveraging the in-field programmability feature inherent to Xilinx FPGAs, Wavesat engineers were able to future-proof their chipset solution against any future specification changes or updates. Wavesat can also tailor the board to match the different needs of WiMAX CPE modem manufacturers by exploiting the common-footprint capability of the Spartan-3E family. This capability allows the card to be populated with either a XC3S500E (500K gates) device for a basic featured modem, or a XC3S1200E (1.2 Million gates) device for more full-featured CPE modem implementation, using the same fine-pitch, thin form factor, 256-pin BGA package and board layout.

“Xilinx Spartan-3E devices provided the most comprehensive feature set available at the lowest cost,” said Pierre Lamoureux, Wavesat chief technology officer and vice president of Engineering. “The in-field reprogrammability offered by Xilinx FPGAs allowed us to accelerate development of our solution, while maintaining the flexibility to modify the mini-PCI reference design in order to address changes in the WiMAX specification and enable OEMs to customize it to meet their own unique
requirements ..”

Xilinx and Wavesat are among a growing number of industry leaders to target this rapidly growing standard, providing product developers with an efficient, low risk and flexible means to bring WiMAX products to market. According to Visant Strategies, the number of worldwide WiMAX users is expected to grow from virtually nothing in 2005 to 14.9 million users in 2009, creating over $13.8 billion dollars in service revenues from this segment.

"The WiMAX Forum is pleased to see two of its principal members collaborate on the development of solutions to help other members realize their vision of wireless broadband as the preferred technology for carriers, while enabling WiMAX system developers to meet their cost and performance goals through the introduction of this pre-tested design kit,” said Ron Resnick, President of the WiMAX Forum.

About the Wavesat WiMAX Mini-PCI Reference Design
Wavesat’s WiMAX Mini-PCI Reference Design is a development platform to guide and support efforts in designing 802.16-2004 compliant WiMAX Mini-PCI module using Wavesat’s DM256 integrated circuit. It accelerates the overall WiMAX CPE system design for OEM’s and ODM’s by providing a plug-and-play complete solution for the lower layer air interface while allowing the customer to tailor the motherboard providing the higher layer application processor and peripherals according to their specific needs, hence reducing development efforts. Visit the company’s web site for complete details at www.wavesat.com.

Pricing and Availability
Wavesat’s WiMAX Mini-PCI Reference Design is immediately available for OEMs and ODMs. The design includes the PHY, lower level MAC, and the RF circuitry on an industry standard small form factor module . Visit www.wavesat.com for more information.

About Xilinx Spartan-3 Series FPGAs
In 1998, Xilinx ignited the low cost FPGA revolution with the introduction of the Spartan Series. Today, Spartan Series FPGAs are broadly adopted in high-volume, consumer applications, with over 128 million units shipped and $1.2B in cumulative revenue. With the introduction of its Spartan-3E family, Xilinx continues to add new market-specific features to its low cost Spartan Series while reducing the cost by 30X since its introduction, offering 1000 logic cells for as little as $0.46. Visit www.xilinx.com/spartan3e for more information.

About Wavesat
Founded in 1993, Wavesat Inc. is a fabless semiconductor company focused on the development and supply of OFDM modem chips for WiMAX compliant systems. Wavesat is a privately held company headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where it conducts research and development activities. Key investors include BDC Venture Capital, Innovatech Montréal, Monet Capital, Pac-Link Management Corp., Skypoint Capital Corporation, Solidarity Fund QFL and Sunsino Ventures Group. Wavesat is a Principal member of the WiMAX Forum, a non-profit corporation formed to certify the compatibility and interoperability of BW devices as specified in the IEEE 802.16-2004 standard and to help accelerate the introduction of these devices into the marketplace.

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