Xilinx Introduces XtremeDSP Starter Kit for Low-Cost DSP Systems Development with Spartan-3A DSP FPGAs

Kit provides everything designers of low-cost DSP applications need to kick start their hardware development including low-cost DSP-optimized FPGA and XtremeDSP development tools

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Feb. 26, 2008 -- Xilinx, Inc., the world's leading provider of programmable solutions, today announced the immediate availability of the XtremeDSP Starter Kit - Spartan(TM)-3A DSP FPGA Edition. The new kit delivers a complete solution for cost-sensitive DSP application development such as portable medical equipment, low-cost wireless infrastructure, flat panel displays and many other applications that require DSP performance along with low cost and low power.

This new starter kit features the low-cost Spartan-3A DSP 1800 FPGA, which offers more than 20 billion multiply-accumulates per second (GMACS) for under $30. At the heart of the Spartan-3A DSP FPGA architecture is the DSP48A slice that enables designers to implement many independent arithmetic functions. The Spartan-3A DSP FPGA family delivers 25 percent lower dynamic power, 1.5X faster DSP performance for less cost than competing FPGAs. Also included is System Generator for DSP which enables the use of The Mathworks popular MATLAB(R) and Simulink(R) modeling environments when designing with Xilinx FPGAs. The new starter kit is part of the Xilinx(R) XtremeDSP(TM) solution that also includes the XtremeDSP Video Starter Kit - Spartan-3A DSP FPGA Edition also announced today.

"The XtremeDSP Starter Kit -Spartan-3A DSP FPGA Edition is the ideal platform for users who have never designed DSP applications into FPGAs before," said Dean Westman, vice president of marketing for the Processor Solutions Group at Xilinx. "It's attractively priced and includes our premier DSP development tool, System Generator for DSP, that lets new users quickly create DSP designs with Simulink software using an extensive library of over 100 Xilinx-optimized DSP building blocks. System Generator makes it easy for new users to familiarize themselves with the capabilities of the XtremeDSP slice and to explore how parallelism can be used to boost the performance of their DSP applications."

The board includes a VGA port for developing video processing algorithms, an Ethernet 10/100/1000 PHY, as well as an RS-232 port for simple communications with a remote console. It also comes equipped with 128Mb X 32 bit DDR2 SDRAM, 16Mx8 Parallel/BPI configuration flash, and 64Mb of SPI configuration/storage flash. Also supported is a full JTAG interface for configuration and debug, as well as a module connector, cables and power connector for the System ACE(TM) tool. For adding further functionality, the development platform includes an expansion slot to enable designers to integrate add-on cards available from Xilinx distributors.

Pricing and Availability

The XtremeDSP Starter Kit - Spartan(TM)-3A DSP FPGA Edition (HW-SD1800A- DSP-SK-SG-UNI-G-PROMO) is available now for $495. For more information, please visit http://www.xilinx.com/s3adspstarterkit.

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(TM)-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 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 www.xilinx.com.