PR Newswire
Oct 13, 2003 07:30 ET

Xilinx Expands Low Cost Leadership with Next Generation WebPACK 6.1i Design Solution

Company Widen Design Support for Industry's Lowest Cost 90nm Spartan-3 FPGAs - Builds on Existing Full-Range CPLD Product Support

SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX) today announced that it has expanded support for its Spartan-3 family with the company's next generation free, web-downloadable design solution -- ISE WebPACK 6.1i. The new design solution gives customers greater flexibility in taking advantage of the world's lowest cost and only 90nm FPGAs -- the Spartan-3 family -- to dramatically reduce overall design time and costs. Already, over 125,000 designers worldwide utilize the ISE WebPACK design environment, demonstrating the prevalence of Xilinx software tools for designing simple glue logic to complete "system-on-a-chip" FPGA designs.

"Xilinx continues to deliver complete design solutions to our customers so they can fully leverage our industry-leading low cost FPGA and CPLD solutions," said Rich Sevcik, senior vice president and general manager of the Programmable Logic Systems group at Xilinx. "ISE WebPACK is the PLD industry's defacto standard for highly capable, easy-to-use design environments and is widely accessible to all types of designers worldwide given that it is web- downloadable."

ISE WebPACK 6.1i has been significantly enhanced to enable users to complete designs faster and reduce overall project costs. Project Navigator, the heart of the ISE WebPACK environment, includes new features to simplify many tasks within the design flow. For example, several enhancements have been made to the PACE (Pinout and Area Constraint Editor) feature, including support for CPLDs and a new comma separated value (CSV) interface for PCB layout assistance. Additionally, ISE WebPACK 6.1i environment includes an embedded HTML browser for more convenient viewing of CPLD fitter reports, error navigation, and web pages. To ensure greater ease-of-use, the embedded web browser creates an unbroken connection between the ISE design environment and the award winning Xilinx support.xilinx.com website.

Providing customers with a broader range of support for Xilinx devices, ISE WebPACK 6.1i now supports three devices in the Spartan-3 family -- the XC3S50, XC3S200 and XC3S400. Xilinx is now shipping on schedule four of eight Spartan-3 FPGA family members. ISE WebPACK 6.1i also supports low to mid-range devices in the Spartan-II/IIE and Virtex-II platform FPGA families. ISE WebPACK 6.1i continues to offer support for Xilinx CoolRunner-II and XC9500 CPLD device families.

Introduced in 1999, ISE WebPACK 6.1i is a subset of Xilinx's ISE Foundation design tools. ISE WebPACK provides fast and convenient access to the ISE design environment at no cost. The completely integrated ISE WebPACK environment offers users with access to easy-to-use design entry tools, optimized synthesis, an average 31% faster performance than the nearest competitive offering, total verification from any point in the design flow, and powerful implementation in a single push-button integrated environment. With ISE WebPACK 6.1i, designers are now notified when software updates are available, downloading and installing only those files applicable to their installation. This convenience ensures that designers have the most up to date design environment.

Price, platforms, and availability

ISE WebPACK 6.1i is available immediately for download from www.xilinx.com/ise/WebPACK6. ISE WebPACK 6.1i runs on both Windows 2000 and Windows XP. ISE WebPACK 6.1i provides support for all Xilinx leading-edge PLD families, including CoolRunner-II CPLDs, Spartan-IIE and Spartan-3 FPGA families, and the Virtex-II platform FPGAs including the Virtex-II Pro(TM) XC2VP2(TM) FPGA. Visit the Xilinx web site at www.xilinx.com/ise/webpack6 for complete information on the free ISE WebPACK and other ISE products.

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