PR Newswire
Jun 14, 2005 07:30 ET

Customer Bulletin: Xilinx Demonstrates 7x Signal Integrity Advantage of Virtex-4 FPGAs to Engineers Around the World

SAN JOSE, Calif., June 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX) today announced that its worldwide RocketLabs have been outfitted with signal integrity demo boards highlighting the distinct signal integrity advantage of the Xilinx Virtex(TM)-4 multi-platform FPGA family over competing FPGAs. Xilinx(R) RocketLabs provides systems designers free access to high-speed design equipment, evaluation boards, applications expertise and specialized training. New signal integrity demo boards, lab measurements and simulations conducted by renowned signal integrity expert, Dr. Howard Johnson, clearly illustrate that the advanced packaging technology of Virtex-4 FPGAs provides up to seven times less crosstalk compared to competing 90nm FPGAs. Designers can subsequently take advantage of this enhanced signal integrity for every high-speed application, including commonly used memory interfaces.

Today's high-speed designs routinely have hundreds of I/Os, with buses greater than 32 bits, 300+ Mbps bandwidth and shrinking timing margins. At these data rates, practically every design has inductive crosstalk and simultaneous switching output noise that can have a serious impact on system reliability. The Virtex-4 advanced packaging technology delivers superior signal integrity that reduces system design cycles and costs. High-performance FPGAs, without such packaging techniques, can result in multiple expensive board re-spins and time-consuming verification and debugging for high-speed applications. The signal integrity performance provided by Virtex-4 devices exceeds the performance provided by traditional design techniques such as soft/virtual grounds. Designers interested in learning more about this topic can view the latest BGA Crosstalk webcast by Dr. Howard Johnson (please see web site below).

Some of the key Virtex-4 technologies for superior signal integrity include:

-- New SparseChevron(TM) package pin out
* Highest ratio of VCCO/GND pin pairs to I/O pins for greater voltage stability
* VCCO and GND pins adjacent to every SelectIO(TM) pin to minimize inductance
-- Best on-chip decoupling capacitors
-- Continuous Power/Ground planes

To further help designers understand the impact of FPGA package pinout on signal integrity, Xilinx is conducting a series a worldwide webcasts and on- demand demonstration videos showing both scaled FPGA package models and actual FPGAs.

To take advantage of 7x less crosstalk and SSO noise, visit www.xilinx.com/virtex4/si:

-- Register to view the free archived and live webcasts with Dr. Howard Johnson
-- Order a DVD demonstrating SI techniques for parallel I/O
-- Download BGA Crosstalk white papers
-- Access Signal Integrity Central to download latest SI design resources

Virtex e-Newsletter

Register now at www.xilinx.com/virtex4 to receive Virtex-4 product updates via the Xilinxe-Newsletter.

About RocketLabs

Xilinx created RocketLabs, the world's first network of high-speed design labs, to provide a comprehensive set of high-speed design resources for customers. Xilinx RocketLabs provides system designers throughout the world with free access to high-speed design equipment, evaluation boards, applications expertise and specialized training. With 15 locations throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Japan, RocketLabs provide designers with the specialized capability to evaluate and validate high-speed serial designs from 622 Mbps to 10 Gbps and beyond. The labs also provide design resources for embedded designs using the embedded PowerPC(TM) processor and MicroBlaze(TM) soft processor core.

About Xilinx Virtex-4 Platform FPGAs

Named 2004 Product of the Year by Electronic Products Magazine, Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGAs deliver more options, higher performance and lower power than any other FPGA family available today. With more than 100 technical innovations, the Virtex-4 family consists of 17 devices and three domain-optimized platforms; Virtex-4 LX FPGAs optimized for logic-intensive designs, Virtex-4 SX FPGAs optimized for high-performance signal processing, and Virtex-4 FX FPGAs optimized for high-speed serial connectivity and embedded processing. A multi-platform approach makes it possible for customers to select the optimal mix of resources for their application to achieve the highest functionality and breakthrough performance at the lowest cost. Devices are shipping now. For more information on the Virtex-4 product family, visit www.xilinx.com/virtex4.

Web site: http://www.xilinx.com/