Xilinx Press Backgrounder December 8, 2009

Xilinx Domain Targeted Design Platform Backgrounder The introduction of the Virtex®-6 and Spartan®-6 families in February 2009 marked the beginning of Xilinx’s new platform approach to deliver increased FPGA design productivity and easy-of-use to developers. Like many platform approaches adopted by industry leaders in the semiconductor business, Xilinx’s Targeted Design Platforms embrace open standards, common development flows and familiar design environments so that designers can focus on innovation by spending as little time as possible on the mundane tasks common to any development project.

Figure 1: Xilinx Targeted Design Platforms allow customer design and innovation to be applied at any level

Why the term ‘targeted’? Because with each new generation, FPGAs have become a better solution to an increasing number of applications that contain system bottlenecks whether it be in embedded, digital signal processing, or systems that require high bandwidth communication channels to deal with large amounts of data. The trick is being able to tap into the inherent parallelism, integrated memory, DSP, and communication features of the FPGA. Engineers working on these systems come from different backgrounds and design disciplines and require tools and IP (intellectual property) unique to their domain of expertise. To this end, Xilinx realizes that it must provide reference designs that are fully supported and easily scaled across different end applications, reference designs that serve as a basis or starting point for end application development.

Each development kit includes development boards for Virtex-6 or Spartan-6 FPGA devices; full ISE® Design Suite editions with optimized design flows for either DSP, Embedded, or Connectivity; fully verified Targeted Reference Designs; example designs and demonstrations enabling feature specific evaluation and onboard diagnostics; complete documentation and instructions, including source code, for setting up, evaluating, and modifying the reference design for use as a starting point in end applications; as well as all necessary power, configuration, and communication cables. A series of step-by-step tutorials are also provided to quickly get new users of FPGAs up and running quickly. These tutorials cover basic design methodology including FPGA programming, tool flow compilation steps, design creation, and verification.

Xilinx Domain Targeted Design Platform Backgrounder Connectivity Platforms Xilinx serial and parallel connectivity solutions meet the most demanding bandwidth, power, and cost requirements for bringing systems together across a backplane, chip-to-chip, or box-to-box. With the latest generation Virtex-6 and Spartan-6 devices, design for success is realized with the lowest power, highest speed serial transceivers and the industry’s widest protocol support. In addition, built-in PCI Express® and tri-mode Ethernet MAC blocks save valuable logic resources and power, while enabling high performance connectivity at reduced cost.

Figure 2: Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA SP605 Domain Platform Design Kit for Embedded/DSP/Connectivity

The two new connectivity kits, supporting Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA and the high-performance Virtex-6 FPGA families, are complete, easy-to-use development and demonstration platforms for Xilinx connectivity solutions. Processing Platforms For developers accustomed to using RISC or DSP processors, the transition to FPGA based hardware can be intimidating and involves learning a new set of design skills and understanding of hardware. For developers new to FPGAs, or FPGAs for processing, this can often be a significant undertaking that can potentially add an element of risk and possible schedule delays. The Xilinx Spartan-6 and Virtex-6 FPGA Development Kits for Embedded and DSP applications are specifically designed to ease FPGA adoption and enable software, algorithm and hardware developers to quickly begin developing system-on-a-chip (SoC) applications on Xilinx FPGAs.

Figure 2: Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGA ML605 and Spartan-6 FPGA SP605 development boards

The following sections provide details of the four development kits being announced on December 8, 2009:

2

Xilinx Domain Targeted Design Platform Backgrounder Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA Connectivity Development Kit The Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA Connectivity Kit is a complete, easy-to-use connectivity development and demonstration platform using the low-cost Spartan-6 LXT device family. As a Xilinx Connectivity Targeted Design Platform, this kit provides the hardware, software, IP, and targeted reference designs needed to create high-speed serial systems and other connectivity applications right out of the box. The Spartan-6 LXT FPGA enables designing with industry-standard high-speed serial protocols including PCI Express® (version 1.1), Ethernet (GMII, SFP), and DDR3, as well as enabling designs using other serial standards and proprietary implementations up to 3.125Gb/s and multiple parallel protocols including 3.3V I/O standards. The Connectivity Kit with Spartan-6 LXT FPGA simplifies design, development, and validation of multi-protocol systems and enables designers to differentiate with an efficient, low-cost programmable connectivity solution. The kit integrates the critical components of connectivity development to accelerate design, implement low-cost protocol bridging, and provide a higher efficiency alternative to LVDS communication for multiple market segments. It also serves as the starting point for market-specific connectivity design platforms by providing scalable building block architecture with targeted reference designs and hardware ecosystem of industrystandard FMC daughter card extensions. FEATURES & BENEFITS Comprehensive connectivity development platform with all the hardware, software, firmware, IP, and reference designs needed to create fully functional working systems • ISE Design Suite: Embedded Edition tailored for logic and connectivity designers (devicelocked to Spartan-6 LX45T FPGA) • Pre-verified, customizable targeted reference design integrates PCIe, Gigabit Ethernet, and on-board DDR3 memory with virtual FIFO and optimized Packet DMA to accelerate bandwidth • Full version of Northwest Logic PCIe Packet DMA engine optimized for Spartan-6 FPGA and the connectivity kit. TECHNICAL SPECS • RoHS-compliant SP605 board with Spartan-6 LX45T FPGA, universal power supply, and accessory cables • On-board FMC daughter card connector for plug-in scalability • USB stick with device driver files, design source files, applications • Downloadable documentation with schematics, Gerber files, board BOM, and detailed user guides

3

Xilinx Domain Targeted Design Platform Backgrounder Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGA Connectivity Development Kit The Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGA Connectivity Development Kit is a comprehensive connectivity development and demonstration platform using the high performance Virtex-6 LXT FPGA family. As a Xilinx Connectivity Targeted Design Platform, this kit provides the hardware, software, IP, and targeted reference designs needed to create high-speed serial and other connectivity applications right out of the box. Virtex-6 LXT FPGAs enable designing with PCI Express 1.1/2.0, Ethernet (GMII, SFP, XAUI), SATA, and other proprietary high-speed serial protocols with line rates up to 6.5Gb/s, as well as multiple parallel standards running at ~ 1.4Gb/s with SelectIO™ technology. The Connectivity kit with Virtex-6 LXT FPGA simplifies design, development, and validation of high performance and high bandwidth multi-protocol systems amidst changing market requirements. Production-proven methodologies and tool suites, delivered through the Virtex-6 FPGA Connectivity Development kit enable designers to analyze and debug high-speed serial solutions in real time. The kit jumpstarts development with a targeted reference design that integrates PCI Express and XAUI protocol IP cores in a working system that features access to on-board DDR3 memory through a virtual FIFO, and accelerates bandwidth with an optimized high-performance packet DMA. The Virtex-6 FPGA Connectivity Development Kit also serves as a starting point for market-specific Targeted Design Platforms by providing a scalable building block architecture based on Targeted Reference Designs and an ecosystem of industry-standard FMC daughter card extensions. FEATURES & BENEFITS • Comprehensive development platform with all the hardware, software, firmware, application IP and GUI to create a fully functional system solution • ISE Design Suite: Embedded Edition tailored for logic and connectivity designers with ChipScope™ Pro Analyzer and Serial I/O Toolkit (device-locked to Virtex-6 LX240T FPGA) • Pre-verified, customizable and fully supported Targeted Reference Design for PCIe10GDMA-DDR3-XAUI • Multiple example designs including SFI4.1, SFI5, and PCIe 2.0 and 1.1 multi-lane configurations TECHNICAL SPECS RoHS-compliant ML605 base board with Virtex-6 LX240T device • Universal power supply and accessory cables including CX4 loopback module • VITA57-compliant FMC daughter card with CX4, SATA, and SMA interfaces • USB stick with device driver files, design source files, and applications • Downloadable documentation with schematics, Gerber files, board BOM, and detailed user guides

4

Xilinx Domain Targeted Design Platform Backgrounder Embedded Targeted Design Platforms (Xilinx Spartan-6 and Virtex-6 FPGA Embedded Development Kits) Xilinx Embedded Development Kits simplify development of embedded processor systems with Virtex-6 FPGA and Spartan-6 FPGAs. As Xilinx Embedded Targeted Design Platforms, these kits provide all the hardware, software, IP, and reference designs needed to create embedded systems right out of the box. The Spartan-6 FPGA Embedded Development Kit provides a low-cost base platform for embedded applications requiring connectivity. The Virtex-6 FPGA Embedded Development Kit is a full-featured environment for developing embedded applications that demand high performance processing, serial connectivity and advanced memory interfacing. Both kits come with the MicroBlaze™ processor subsystem targeted reference design as a starting point for hardware customization and software development, as well as a video processing design example and detailed tutorial demonstrating how to further customize the system. For standalone (or bare-metal) software development, an Eclipse-based Software Development Kit (SDK) is provided with GNU tools, wizards for creating software applications and linker scripts, flash writer, standard ‘C’ libraries and drivers for embedded peripherals. Linux or RTOSbased software development is supported with an ecosystem of third party operating system and middleware solutions that work seamlessly with the Xilinx SDK. FEATURES & BENEFITS • Comprehensive development platforms with all the hardware, software, firmware building blocks, and tools needed to jumpstart application development • RoHS-compliant boards enable integration of embedded processor subsystem with DDR3, PCI Express, Gigabit Ethernet, UART interfaces and industry-standard FMC for plug-in scalability • Targeted reference design with MicroBlaze processor, multi-port DDR3 memory controller, Tri-mode Ethernet MAC, UART, SPI, I2C, timers, interrupt controller and on-chip memory • Hardware & Software tutorials demonstrate how to customize the design and provide best practices for compiling, debugging, and profiling software applications. • Linux and RTOS support includes PetaLinux OS from PetaLogix, and uC/OS-II and uC/TCP-IP ports from Micrium with uC/Probe debug tools. Middleware support includes high performance TCP/IP stack from Treck TECHNICAL SPECS • Virtex-6 FPGA Embedded Development Kit: ML605 base board with Virtex-6 LX240T FG1156 device, universal power supply, and accessory cables • Spartan-6 FPGA Embedded Development Kit: SP605 base board with Spartan-6 LX45T FG484 device, universal power supply, and accessory cables • ISE Design Suite Embedded Edition with Platform Studio tools, EDK, and SDK (locked to Virtex-6 LX240T or Spartan-6 LX45T FPGA) • Reference designs, demos, documentation and tutorials available on a USB stick and from the web

5

Xilinx Domain Targeted Design Platform Backgrounder DSP Targeted Design Platforms FPGAs are a popular hardware choice when DSP processing bandwidth requirements exceed 10 GMACs. The flexibility of FPGAs makes them ideal for high-performance or multi-channel DSP applications that can take advantage of hardware parallelism to achieve a single-chip solution with lower cost and power over a multi-DSP implementation. Xilinx FPGA DSP Kits that will be available for order entry in January and will help designers quickly begin prototyping their applications on Xilinx FPGAs in less than a day. Each development kit comes with a step-by-step hardware and software setup guide that insures no time is wasted from the beginning. A graphical user interface is provided that guides new users through the following three step getting started processes. Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA DSP Development Kit The Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA DSP Development Kit provides a complete development platform for implementing DSP algorithms on low-cost, low power Spartan-6 FPGAs. As a Xilinx DSP Targeted Design Platform, this kit provides all the development boards, IP, design software, and reference designs needed to get started right out of the box. At the heart of the Spartan-6 FPGA DSP Development Kit is the Avnet AS-LX150T development board featuring the Spartan-6 LX150T device. This device family is optimized with the right balance of connectivity, memory and DSP hardware resources for DSP applications. The LX150T is the largest Spartan-6 device and provides more than enough hardware resources for even the most demanding high-volume DSP applications. FEATURES & BENEFITS • Spartan-6 LX150T FPGA with 180 enhanced DSP48A1 slices that deliver up to 50 GMACs of DSP performance • Develop DSP applications without RTL design experience using System Generator for DSP software with The Mathworks Simulink® and MATLAB® DSP modeling environments • Pre-verified DSP targeted reference designs supply design infrastructure and provide starting point for DSP development • Extensible to vertical market applications with two industry-standard FMC connectors and ecosystem of FMC I/O daughter card providers • Get started quickly with graphical user interface that guides new users on basic kit operation TECHNICAL SPECS • Avnet AS-LX150T development board with the Spartan-6 LX150T FPGA • ISE Design Suite: System Edition device locked to Spartan-6 LX150T FPGA • Simulink-based Digital Up Converter (DUC)/Digital Down Converter (DDC) and RTLbased Digital Up Converter (DUC)/Digital Down Converter (DDC) targeted reference designs • Cables, power supply, and compact flash • Downloadable documentation with Hardware Setup and Getting Started Guides

6

Xilinx Domain Targeted Design Platform Backgrounder Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGA DSP Development Kit The XilinxVirtex-6 DSP Development Kit provides a complete development platform for implementing DSP algorithms on high performance Virtex-6 FPGAs. As a Xilinx DSP Targeted Design Platform, this kit provides all the development boards, IP, design software, and reference designs needed to get started right out of the box. The Virtex-6 FPGA DSP Development Kit features the Xilinx ML605 Development board with the Virtex-6 LX240T device. This platform includes over 700 DSP48 slices that can deliver in excess of 400 GMACs of DSP processing bandwidth. This is the perfect development platform for high performance wireless, aerospace or defense application. FEATURES & BENEFITS • Virtex-6 LX240T FPGA with 788 enhanced DSP48E1 slices that deliver up to 472 GMACs of DSP performance • Develop DSP applications without RTL design experience using System Generator for DSP software with The Mathworks Simulink® and MATLAB® DSP modeling environments • Pre-verified DSP targeted reference designs supply design infrastructure and provide starting point for DSP development • Extensible to vertical market applications with two industry-standard FMC connectors and ecosystem of FMC I/O daughter card providers • Get started quickly with graphical user interface that guides new users on basic kit operation TECHNICAL SPECS • Xilinx ML605 development board with the Virtex-6 LX240T FPGA • ISE Design Suite: System Edition device locked to Virtex-6 LX240T FPGA • Simulink-based Digital Up Converter (DUC)/Digital Down Converter (DDC) and RTLbased Digital Up Converter (DUC)/Digital Down Converter (DDC) targeted reference designs • Cables, power supply, and compact flash • Downloadable documentation with Hardware Setup and Getting Started Guides

#

7