Xilinx Releases Aurora Open Protocol to Significantly Reduce System Cost and Increase Bandwidth

Protocol accelerates broad serial connectivity trend dubbed 'Serial Tsunami' by simplifying high-speed I/O design

SAN JOSE, California, October 21, 2002 -Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX) today announced the release of it's Aurora solution - a lightweight, high performance technology designed to move data from point-to-point across serial links. The solution includes an open protocol specification and ready-to-use reference design. System architects using the Aurora solution with the Xilinx® flagship Virtex-II Pro™ FPGAs, which include multiple 3.125Gbps serial transceivers, can now increase system throughput while reducing overall design complexity and system costs. For complete information about the Aurora solution, visit http://www.xilinx.com/aurora.

Today in related news, Xilinx announced its 'Serial Tsunami' initiative to accelerate and support the broad industry adoption of high-speed serial I/O. The Aurora open protocol is one of many Xilinx serial solutions designed to drive down system costs and keep pace with current and future bandwidth requirements.

"With the introduction of Virtex-II Pro devices - the industry's first platform FPGA including RocketIO™ multi-gigabit serial transceivers and IBM PowerPC processors - Xilinx has taken FPGAs to the heart of systems design. The RocketIO transceivers ensures that high-speed serial I/O is no longer an exotic technology, but within the reach of every engineer building electronic systems," said Per Holmberg, worldwide director of Programmable Systems Marketing at Xilinx. "The Aurora solution is all about providing a simple serial interface for engineers looking for cost-optimized system connectivity solutions."

The Aurora open protocol is a scalable, resource-efficient connectivity solution, providing designers with the flexibility to partition their systems without having to worry about routing hundreds of pins on a PC board. Aurora uses gigabit serial technology at the physical layer and generates up to 3.125 Gbps raw bandwidth with as little as four pins. Further, Aurora can aggregate from one to twenty four physical channels together into channel bonded virtual links. With this flexibility Aurora can be scaled for chip-to-chip, board-to-board, chip-to-backplane and box-to-box interconnect. This scalability allows Aurora to optimally support a myriad of applications such as terabit routers and switches, remote access switches, HDTV broadcast systems, bladed servers and storage subsystems that require very high data transfer rates.

Availability The Aurora open protocol specification and reference design are available immediately free of charge. Customers can register and download the solution on the Aurora Solutions Suite website at http://www.xilinx.com/aurora.

About Xilinx
Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) is the worldwide leader of programmable logic and programmable system solutions. Additional information about Xilinx is available at www.xilinx.com.