PR Newswire
Oct 6, 2003 07:31 ET

Xilinx Ships Four Spartan-3 Family Members Through Flawless 90nm Manufacturing Execution

Company Leading by Over One Year in 90nm Process and 300mm Wafer Technologies

SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX) today announced that it is shipping on schedule a total of four members from its industry-leading, 90nm Spartan-3 family -- the XC3S50, XC3S200, XC3S400, and XC3S1000 devices. Two additional Spartan-3 family members, the XC3S1500 and XC3S4000, will ship before the end of this year. Xilinx initially shipped the 90nm Spartan-3 family in March 2003, enabling the company to pass on the cost-density benefits of the 90nm node to customers. Xilinx is on track to ship the entire Spartan-3 family in full volume production in early 2004.

Xilinx and other industry leaders such as IBM, Intel, Sony, Texas Instruments and UMC have successfully shipped products based on 90nm process technology. These companies are using advanced process technology to further separate themselves from the competition.

"In addition to successfully leveraging 90nm process technology, Xilinx is using an innovative I/O architecture to further drive down costs. Spartan-3 devices combine industry-leading 55 micron wire bond staggered I/O pad technology to deliver an unprecedented combination of lowest cost I/O and lowest cost per gate," said Clay Johnson, vice president of the General Products Group at Xilinx.

"Xilinx is at the forefront of developing and producing FPGAs using advanced 90nm and 300mm technologies," said Rich Sevcik, senior vice president of the FPGA Product Group at Xilinx. "While other FPGA vendors struggle with shipping devices with complex functions such as MGTs using 130nm technology, Xilinx is rapidly and successfully moving down the 90nm process technology curve to pass on the cost-density benefits of the new node to our customers today."

Leveraging the low-cost benefits afforded by 90nm technology, Xilinx also announced today breakthrough price points for the Spartan-3 family (see related release). Xilinx is now offering Spartan-3 FPGAs with 1 million system gates for under $12.00*, 50 thousand system gates for $2.95, and three different Spartan-3 FPGAs for under $6.50*.

With an architecture optimized for 90nm technology, Spartan-3 FPGAs offer more density and features than any FPGA in its class to allow customers to reduce overall system costs through integration:

-- High Density and Memory: Spartan-3 FPGAs offer an unprecedented density range for Spartan-class devices, ranging from 50K to 5M system gates. As implemented on 90nm process technology, Spartan-3 FPGAs offer the lowest cost per logic cell in the industry. Spartan-3 FPGAs are unique in the industry with their combination of embedded block and distributed RAM for implementing simple memory and DSP functions.

-- Up to 784 I/Os with Industry Leading 55 Micron Wired Bond Staggered Pad Technology: Spartan-3 devices deliver the maximum number of I/Os through the use of staggered I/O pad technology. Staggered I/O pad technology results in the highest number of I/Os per dollar, making Spartan-3 ideal for I/O and gate-limited designs.

-- Embedded XtremeDSP Functionality: Spartan-3 devices offer embedded DSP capability including dedicated 18x18 multipliers with unrivaled price points for high performance DSP applications with up to 330 billion multiply and accumulates (MACs) per second.

-- I/O Standards: Spartan-3 devices support 23 leading parallel I/O standards, both single-ended and differential signaling, with pre-engineered, fully compliant cores including PCI 32/33 and PCI 64/33, as well as other popular parallel connectivity cores for telecommunications and networking.

Pricing and Availability

The XC3S50, XC3S200, and XC3S400 Spartan-3 devices with 50,000, 200,000, and 400,000 system gates respectively are available for less than $6.50*. The XC3S1000 Spartan-3 device with 1 million system gates is also available for under $12.00*. The entire Spartan-3 family will be available in volume production in early 2004 from distributors worldwide, or direct from Xilinx at www.xilinx.com/spartan.

Website: http://www.xilinx.com/