Xcell Journal: The authoritative journal for programmable ... - Xilinx

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View from the top Focusing on Programmable Technologies Xilinx clearly leads the programmable logic business; now we are expanding into other key programmable technologies. by Wim Roelandts CEO, Xilinx, Inc. Throughout the history of semiconductors, when a technology becomes programmable, it dominates. That’s why, in addition to programmable logic, we have defined two key programmable technologies on which we will focus: digital signal processing and embedded processing. We have the right technology and the right business model to be a major player in all of these important and fast-growing markets. Digital Signal Processing Xilinx FPGAs have long been the highest performance technology for building DSP designs. With our devices and software, you can build systems that are two to three orders of magnitude faster than what a dedicated DSP device can do on its own. Putting our extremely high performance DSP functionality next to a programmable DSP allows DSP designers to develop systems with unprecedented performance and value. You also get many other advantages offered by FPGAs, including flexibility, fast time to market, and higher levels of system integration. There simply is no easier, faster, or better way to develop extreme performance DSP designs. For example, with our new Virtex-4 FPGA family, you can achieve 256 GigaMACs (billions of multiple accumulates per second). We have achieved this amazing performance through both advanced architecture and silicon fabrication technologies. Applications for our high-performance DSP capabilities are growing. Broadcasting or video conferencing for high-definition television, for example, is rapidly being converted to the H.264 format. This standard requires a lot of processing power, as the target is to have the quality of MPEG- 2 video at one-half the bit rate. Sophisticated motion compensation schemes are being used to achieve this goal. Standard video processors can perform this 6 Xcell Journal Winter 2004
function at smaller screen sizes up to common intermediate format (CIF) resolutions, but to go beyond this to standard definition (SD) or high definition (HD) requires the performance of a Xilinx FPGA to perform some of the more math-intensive functions (such as motion estimation) in conjunction with a programmable video processor. Our DSP capability makes Xilinx the technology of choice for these new demanding applications. For years the only other solution for these very high performance DSP applications was custom devices – ASICs. Yet ASICs take far longer to design, cost much more to develop, cannot easily be modified to meet changing requirements, and are risky because of their complexity. Xilinx programmable devices and development tools provide a far better solution with less overall cost. Today, the high-performance FPGAbased DSP market alone is worth more than $200 million, and we have over 80% of that market. According to market estimates, the DSP market addressable by FPGAs is expected to grow to more than $3 billion by 2007. So, as you can see, the future looks very bright for Xilinx as the demand for very high performance DSP continues to grow. We are well positioned to provide the devices, the development tools, and the support services to meet this growing demand. Embedded Processing We are relatively new to the embedded processing market – three years ago we introduced our Virtex-II Pro family, which includes an embedded hard-core IBM PowerPC processor. Although it took awhile for the idea to catch on, we now have thousands of design wins using our embedded processors. And in addition to the PowerPC processor, we now offer our 32-bit MicroBlaze and the 8-bit PicoBlaze soft-core processors. All of these embedded processors work together, using the same peripherals and IP, so you can easily create complete high-performance, multi-processor systems on a single low-cost chip. The total embedded processor market is very fragmented because there are multiple architectures and multiple operating sys- V I E W F R O M T H E T O P tems. Customers tend to stay with a known architecture because of their long-term software investment – no one wants to re-code and re-port their designs to a new architecture. That’s one reason why we chose the PowerPC as our high-performance processor, because (except for cell phones and video games) it is the one most used in our industry, and it is well supported by both IBM and Motorola. Capturing even a relatively small percentage of this $15 billion market would mean significant revenue for Xilinx. Many embedded processing customers are beginning to realize the benefits of our technology – and we’ve only started to focus on this market segment. Because our MicroBlaze and PicoBlaze processors are created as soft cores, they are very flexible and extensible. Plus, they are fast enough to meet the needs of many applications, very inexpensively. Combined with our high-performance PowerPC processor, they form an unbeatable alliance that can handle the most demanding applications with ease, all on a single programmable device. Our processor strategy is to provide a range of embedded processors, all using the same peripherals and IP, all working together seamlessly on a single chip, and working seamlessly with our DSP and logic functions. Thus you can build and simulate very complex systems and produce production-ready designs faster than ever before. Then, as your requirements change or as design errors are uncovered, you can quickly modify your design and resume production without losing customers. That’s the power of programmability; that’s what Xilinx does best. The advantages are enormous. Focusing on the Future Our original focus was on supporting logic designers – the traditional customers for our devices. However, DSP and embedded processing designers are very different from logic designers; they use different tools, they have different needs and expectations, and they approach their designs in different ways. For example, DSP designers usually work with algorithms such as Fast Fourier Transforms and FIR filters; embedded processing designers work with high-level languages such as C or C++, while logic designers usually work in VHDL or Verilog. Although the final implementation is in an FPGA, the design approach is very different for each of these customers, and thus we must support these customers in different ways. Therefore, to ensure that we are addressing the needs of each market segment, I decided to create two new divisions within Xilinx; one to focus on the DSP market and one to focus on the embedded processing market. Each new division, headed by a vice president, will focus on providing the development tools, devices, IP (cores), support services, and marketing functions to fully capitalize on these growing technologies. We intend to be the leader in all of these key programmable technologies. Conclusion Xilinx is the only company that can bring all these programmable technologies together in a single device, giving you a tremendous advantage in performance, cost, and time to market. If you do a system-on-chip design in an ASIC, it will require tens of millions of dollars in upfront (NRE) investment, and ASIC designs are risky because you not only have to do the logic design – you must also do the physical design. This can only be justified for high-volume, low-cost applications. With Xilinx you can do a system-onchip design with no NRE. And because the chip itself is already designed and debugged, you don’t need to worry about physical design issues such as crosstalk and power distribution. All you need to do is develop the logic design, which can be quick and easy using our growing family of IP and development tools that solve many complex design problems for you. Basically, now we can offer a systemon-chip for the masses, because now we have the advantages of an ASIC in a flexible and programmable device. Now you can create a single chip that includes DSP and embedded processors, along with IP and custom logic, for much less cost and no risk. All these programmable technologies, available on a single device, give you a significant advantage. Winter 2004 Xcell Journal 7
Page 1 and 2: ISSUE 51, WINTER 2004 XCELL JOURNAL
Page 3 and 4: EDITOR IN CHIEF Carlis Collins edit
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Page 10 and 11: EMBEDDED SYSTEMS Sign of the Times
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Figure 1 - The Virtex-4 FPGA offers
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y Daniel E. Michek Staff Field Appl
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same address location, thus increas
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typical application is the digital
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The Memec P160 Analog Module is a d
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X-ray X-ray vision vision for for y
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PPC. This FIFO allows the relativel
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I would like to see Xilinx System G
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Early Access: The Designer’s Edge
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Agilent Signal 250 Khz - 3Ghz Agile
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We picked [9 Xilinx Virtex-II Pro d
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LIN Bus - A Cost-Effective Alternat
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Automotive Cost Speed Network Per N
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Education Services Trims Your Learn
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Board of Education The UNM FPGA pro
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FPGAs Ensure Flexible and Adaptable
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Forthcoming developments in future
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Why Prototype? The complexity assoc
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Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGAs http://www.xi
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TI Power Solutions: Power Behind Yo
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