Geometry shrink pays dividends for FPGA users

Xilinx reckons its investment in the industry's most advanced 90nm and 300mm chip-making technology is already paying off for customers.

Xilinx reckons its investment in the industry's most advanced 90nm and 300mm chip-making technology is already paying off for customers, with new breakthrough price points for the world's first 90nm family of programmable chips, shipping since March of this year.

By continuing to set new price-density standards for FPGAs, Xilinx is accelerating the company's expansion into the $23 billion total available market for high-volume, low-cost applications traditionally served by custom chips with fixed architectures, such as ASICs.

Xilinx is now offering Spartan-3 FPGAs with one million system gates for an unprecedented $12.00 and three different Spartan-3 FPGAs for under $7.00.

Spartan-3 platform devices range from 50K to 5M system gates, with prices starting at $2.95, which represents a cost savings of up to 80%% over competing offerings.

The company's early commitment and investment in 90nm and 300mm manufacturing has resulted in an 80% chip-size reduction compared to competing products based on 130nm technology.

Xilinx has rapidly moved down the process technology curve since first shipments of the Spartan-3 family in March, making it possible for the company to quickly pass on the cost-density benefits of 90nm to customers.

With strong yields ramping fast, Xilinx is shipping four of eight total members of the Spartan-3 FPGA family and on-track to deliver the entire Spartan-3 family in full-volume production early next year.

"While sceptics have voiced concerns regarding the industry's ability to meet the 90nm challenge, today's news provides clear evidence that Xilinx has not only met the challenge but exceeded expectations by delivering immediate cost benefits to customers", said Wim Roelandts, Chairman and CEO of Xilinx.

"We're delighted to count Xilinx among an elite group of companies with the technology acumen to take full advantage of 90nm and 300mm manufacturing this year.

As traditional ASIC and ASSP design starts continue to decline, we expect that FPGA design starts using Spartan-3 will ultimately fuel higher growth for PLD makers".

According to recent public statements, Xilinx is over 12 months ahead of its nearest competitor in delivering 90nm and 300mm technology, giving Xilinx a formidable technology lead and bolstering its position as the world leader in low-cost solutions.

Xilinx pioneered the fabless semiconductor business model more than 18 years ago and continues to be at the forefront of the race to advanced manufacturing processes.

The company has established an impressive track record of industry firsts - including first to 150nm in 2001 and first to 130nm in 2002.

Currently, the company is also the highest volume purchaser of 300mm wafers in the world.

Spartan-3 FPGAs offer an unprecedented density range for Spartan-class devices - ranging from 50K to 5M system gates - enabling customers to reduce overall system costs through integration.

With the feature-rich Spartan-3 platform, designers can also take advantage of Spartan-3 FPGAs as a robust, affordable, flexible alternative to traditional custom ASIC designs.

Engineers developing products for the price-sensitive, high-volume electronics market have historically used custom chips with fixed architectures such as ASICs because of their performance and cost advantages.

With Spartan-3, Xilinx has dramatically narrowed the price-performance gap between programmable and fixed logic to drive FPGA adoption further into higher volume applications and hasten the decline of ASIC design.

Among the many applications Xilinx can now address are low cost routers, storage servers, residential gateways, medical and industrial imaging, video-on-demand services, and consumer entertainment (LCD TVs, HDTV, DVD-RW etc), to name a few.

In addition, by making programmable technology more affordable and accessible, new types of functionality and features will now be available in a wider range of end products.

The 3S50, 3S200, and 3S400 Spartan-3 devices with 50,000, 200,000, and 400,000 system gates, respectively, are available now for less than $7.00.

The 3S1000 Spartan-3 device with 1 million system gates is also available now at $12.00.

The entire Spartan-3 family will be available in volume production in early 2004 from distributors worldwide, or direct from Xilinx.

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