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It’s a Programmable World
Programmable World 2003 workshops offer detailed instruction in tools, technologies,
and methodologies of system designs.
by David Vornholt
AllianceEDA Program Manager
Xilinx, Inc.
david.vornholt@xilinx.com
Why spend your evenings and
weekends wading through product
datasheets and application notes?
Time to knowledge is just as
important as time to market.
In the international series of
forums and workshops that make up
Programmable World 2003, Xilinx
and its partners have created dozens of
free technical seminars designed to stir
your imagination, accelerate your design
cycle, and reduce the overall design cost.
An Ecosystem of Leaders
The driving concept behind
Programmable World 2003 has been the
recognition that we do not work in a vacuum.
Recognizing this, Xilinx has partnered
with such industry leaders as
IBM, Agilent Technologies,
Cadence Design Systems, Wind
River Systems, and Mentor Graphics ® .
The synergy of Xilinx and our partners
plays an inherent role in the success of
your designs.
The definition and implementation of
your design involves support from not
just your IC supplier but also from your
EDA, embedded tool, IP, and design service
partners. This is our “ecosystem” of
companies that want to support your
Xilinx-based design.
Cost-Sensitive Designs
The accessibility and usability of cuttingedge
technologies will be demonstrated
at Programmable World.
For example, the Xilinx Spartan-3
family is based on IBM and UMC’s
advanced 90 nm, 8-layer metal process
technology. Xilinx is using 90 nm technology
to drive high-volume pricing
down to under $20 per unit by the end of
2004 for one-million-gate FPGAs. This
represents a cost savings of up to 80 percent
compared to competitive offerings.
Programmable World Forums
The Programmable World forums, which
were held earlier this year, comprised
high-level discussions and demonstra-
tions from Xilinx and the partners mentioned
above. Other forum participants
were Boeing, Intel, and Texas
Instruments, among others.
Attendees included hardware engineers,
ASIC designers, system engineers,
system architects, executives, and
researchers from more than 27 industries
and government agencies, ranging
from home networking to the military.
In the forums, panelists and presenters
explored the end-use possibilities
and real-world design challenges of using
multi-gigabit I/Os, embedded processors,
low-cost platforms, and DSP solutions:
■ IBM discussed the design methods
associated with the integration of new
processor architectures in FPGA-based
systems.
■ Cadence Design Systems and Xilinx
described the challenges – and solutions
– when upgrading existing systems
for higher bandwidth.
■ Agilent Technologies addressed the
growing difficulties of system verification
and hardware/software debugging.
■ Xilinx presented strategies for solving
the connectivity challenges of integrating
ASSPs, network processors, and
memory devices.
■ Xilinx described the use of processor
cores to combine the strengths of both
the processor and logic for optimum
performance and cost.
■ Xilinx examined technical trends in
DSP and presented a case for new
architectures and system-level design
methodologies.
■ Xilinx also demonstrated PCI
Express, RocketPHY,
MicroBlaze/Spartan-3, and DSP
system products. Agilent, Cadence,
74 Xcell Journal Fall 2003