Xilinx Tapes-Out Industry's First All Programmable Multi-Processor SoC Using TSMC's 16nm FF+ for Embedded Vision, ADAS, I-IoT, and 5G Systems

Delivering 5X system level performance/watt and any-to-any connectivity with the security and safety required for next generation, flexible, standards-based platforms

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 1, 2015 -- Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX) today announced it has taped out the industry's first All Programmable Multi-Processor SoC (MPSoC) using TSMC's 16FF+ process, targeting embedded vision, including ADAS and the path to autonomous vehicles, Industrial Internet of Things (I-IoT), and 5G wireless systems. The All Programmable Zynq® UltraScale+™ MPSoC enables the development of flexible, standards-based platforms by providing 5X system level performance/watt and any-to-any connectivity with the security and safety required for next generation systems.

As the world's first heterogeneous multi-processing SoC, the new device combines seven user programmable processors including a quad-core 64-bit ARM® Cortex™-A53 Application Processing Unit, a dual-core 32-bit ARM® Cortex™-R5 Real Time Processing Unit, and an ARM® Mali™-400 Graphics Processing Unit. The Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC family also includes a host of integrated peripherals, safety and security features, and advanced power management. When coupled with the recently introduced SDSoC™ development environment, the new family is enabling systems that are both software defined and hardware optimized.

"The Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC provides an ideal mix of software intelligence, hardware optimization, security and safety, and any-to-any connectivity for the next-generation of smart and connected applications," said Victor Peng, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Programmable Products Group at Xilinx. "The Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC has been specifically tailored to meet the unique requirements of next generation embedded vision, including ADAS and the roadmap to autonomous vehicles, industrial-IoT and 5G wireless systems, with applicability to numerous other applications."

Enabling Embedded Vision Including ADAS, Industrial IoT, and 5G Systems
The Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC is tailored for next-generation embedded vision systems, including industrial machine vision, surveillance, and automotive ADAS systems. For ADAS, the Zynq MPSoC tightly couples highly parallelized hardware image processing and analytics acceleration with software based algorithm configuration and control. With the addition of expanded memory with UltraRAM™ for video buffering, throughput is maximized and latency is reduced; a critical attribute for ADAS. Finally, to enable real-time safety-critical countermeasure decisions and initiate actuator commands, the Zynq MPSoC ARM with dual core Cortex-R5 engines can be utilized in lockstep mode along with cross-monitoring and diagnostic-protected voting in the programmable fabric. The Zynq MPSoC was designed with automotive ISO-26262 functional safety requirements in mind, while still offering a scalable and highly customizable programmable platform that will future-proof customer designs in the quickly changing ADAS space.

For the Industrial Internet of Things, the Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC family is ideally suited to integrate data acquisition, perform real-time diagnostics, and enable local decision-making for intelligent connected control systems. The combination of the MPSoC processing subsystem, the UltraScale programmable logic fabric, and the new UltraRAM on-chip memory technology create the ideal platform to process the vast quantities of data for analytics and manage real-time machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. With a dedicated security processing unit and dual core Cortex-R5 engines that can be configured for lockstep, the Zynq MPSoC also supports SIL3 functional safety and security requirements.

Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC devices support the increased radio and baseband processing requirements of next generation 5G systems. This includes the support of new 'massive MIMO' and adaptive beamforming architectures, CloudRAN layer 1 baseband acceleration and associated Fronthaul applications, with flexible support of multiple standards and multiple bands at significantly lower power. The Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC, with its quad core ARM Cortex-A53 processing subsystem, leverages an integrated fine grain power management system to implement lower power optimal hardware-software design for digital pre-distortion, beamforming control functions, and system management tasks.

Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC Development Environment
Xilinx is also offering an extremely comprehensive early access toolset for the UltraScale+ portfolio. Tools include the SDSoC development environment to enable a complete software defined development alternative for systems and software engineers. In addition, the latest release of the Vivado® Design Suite enables hardware designers to quickly build optimized Zynq MPSoC-based platforms. Finally, Xilinx has already provided source code to enable the open source communities, including Linux, FreeRTOS, OpenAMP, Yocto, QEMU, and XEN. Finally Xilinx's Software Development Kit (SDK), PetaLinux tools, and run-time drivers and libraries complement the total product offering and ease application development.

About Xilinx
Xilinx is the leading provider of All Programmable FPGAs, SoCs, MPSoCs, and 3D ICs. Xilinx uniquely enables applications that are both software defined and hardware optimized – powering industry advancements in Cloud Computing, SDN/NFV, Video/Vision, Industrial IoT, and 5G Wireless.