For Immediate Release
UMC GROUP AND XILINX DELIVER FIRST PURE 0.18 MICRON
FPGA PROCESS
Co-development efforts lead to three million-gate FPGAs
SUNNYVALE, Calif., October 18,
1999-UMC Group and Xilinx Inc., (NASDAQ:XLNX), today announced
that their joint development efforts have led to the production
and shipment of the industry's first 0.18 micron FPGAs. The two
companies aligned to deliver the Virtex-E FPGA family, including
a two million-gate device with 150 million transistors, available
now, supporting multiple gigabit per second I/O bandwidth and
266 MHz double data rate memory performance. The XCV3200E
three million gate FPGA will be available in 2Q00.
Jim Ballingall, vice president of worldwide marketing at UMC
Group noted, "Xilinx has clearly demonstrated its leadership
position in the FPGA industry with the delivery of its next
generation Virtex family. We are extremely happy to have contributed
to this success. Our ability to become the first pure-play foundry
to achieve full production for 0.25 micron, 0.22 micron and
0.18 micron technologies is due, in large part, to our close
cooperation with fabless technology leaders like Xilinx. Our
cooperation represents a common commitment to developing technology
leadership as a competitive advantage."
"Our new Virtex-E family clearly meets the industry's requirements
for high density and high performance FPGA devices. There are
no comparable devices on the market," said Dennis Segers, senior
vice president and general manager for the Xilinx High-end business
unit. "We attribute the early availability of this new product
family to our joint development efforts with UMC Group. UMC
Group has been extremely responsive meeting the challenging
design criteria of our Virtex-E products. Presently, their 0.18
micron technology delivers the performance and yields that we
need to retain our competitive edge."
The aggressive development of the 0.18 micron process, currently
among the most advanced in the world, demanded a very close
working relationship between UMC Group and Xilinx. "With this
unprecedented level of cooperation, Xilinx and UMC Group have
forged a whole new pure-play foundry model that offers process
technologies on par with leading-edge vertically integrated
device manufacturers," continued Ballingal.
Segers added, "This leadership allows FPGA designers to have
early access to the most advanced technology for low-power,
high performance applications."
Xilinx recently announced the shipment of the initial members
of its next generation Virtex-E FPGA family. Four family members
are available including the new XCV2000E device, with two million system gates, supporting twice the system-gate
density and 200 percent higher I/O performance of the original
Xilinx
Virtex FPGAs. The Virtex-E family will consist of 11 members, from 50,000
system gates to 3.2 million system gates within the second quarter
next year. The new Virtex-E FPGAs deliver the performance and
density attributes that were previously addressed only by ASIC
solutions, which are required for emerging communications equipment
such as OC-192 systems and DSP applications capable of handling
more than 200 gigabits per second bandwidth.
About Xilinx
Xilinx is the leading innovator
of complete programmable logic solutions, including advanced
integrated circuits, software design tools, predefined system
functions delivered as cores, and unparalleled field engineering
support. Founded in 1984 and headquartered in San Jose, Calif.,
Xilinx invented the field programmable gate array (FPGA) and
fulfills more than half of the world demand for these devices
today. Xilinx solutions enable customers to reduce significantly
the time required to develop products for the computer, peripheral,
telecommunications, networking, industrial control, instrumentation,
high-reliability/military, and consumer markets. For more information,
visit the Xilinx web site at www.xilinx.com .
