BEIJING, April 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) today announced that its new generation flagship Virtex(R)-6 and Spartan(R)-6 FPGA families have been granted the 2009 China Award for Innovative Low Power Electronic Designs from the Chinese Institute of Electronics (CIE) at the group's annual gathering earlier this month.

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Xilinx was one of just two semiconductor design firms honored with the award, which recognizes the significant innovations the company used to lower power consumption by more than half, compared to previous generation FPGAs. CIE has established the Award for Innovative Low Power Electronic Designs to honor suppliers who make tremendous breakthroughs in low power design as a means to promote green electronic design.

"Green design practices and energy-saving methods are critical elements of future success in electronic product development," said Lin Runhua, deputy secretary general, CIE. "We are committed to encouraging sustainable development as part of the Scientific Development Outlook. CIE hopes that the establishment of the award for innovative low power designs will encourage semiconductor enterprises in China to emulate these best practices, helping them to become more competitive on a global basis and growing the Chinese semiconductor industry. The Virtex-6 and Spartan-6 FPGA products introduced by Xilinx are excellent examples of innovation in low power design and demonstrate this type of design can be achieved without compromises in performance, cost or features."

"We're proud to be recognized by the Chinese electronics industry for our innovation in low power design," said Fai Yeung, vice president of sales for Xilinx Asia Pacific. "The new Virtex-6 and Spartan-6 FPGA families have ushered in a new era of programmable devices, making FPGAs an even more viable approach for power-sensitive products. These devices serve as the foundation for a new generation of 'targeted design platforms' that enable electronic system makers in China to increase productivity and minimize development costs, while adopting greener, lower energy development methodologies optimized to meet today's market requirements."

The new Xilinx FPGA families deliver the right mix of flexibility, hard intellectual property (IP) cores, and development tool support that enables Xilinx customers to meet the demands of markets with evolving standards and stringent performance and/or cost requirements. They exploit the proven advanced process technologies from foundry partners UMC and Samsung to offer the industry's lowest cost, lowest power, largest density, highest performance and highest system bandwidth. Both families can lower total system cost by up to 50 percent, reduce total power consumption by up to 65 percent, and deliver an unprecedented capacity of 760,000 logic cells. These capabilities significantly lower the cost and risk of system-on-chip development compared to ASICs, while delivering the levels of high-performance and low-power consumption designers expect from advanced IC manufacturing technologies.

"Currently, China is paying greater attention to green design, energy conservation and power consumption reduction," said Clement Cheung, marketing and application director for Xilinx Asia Pacific, "Soon after their introduction, the Virtex-6 and Spartan-6 FPGA families won recognition from CIE, indicating the great importance it places on energy-saving and reducing power consumption in next generation products."

Specific to low power design, Xilinx introduced a number of new techniques and innovations to achieve the significant improvement in power consumption for both families. Virtex-6 (40nm) and Spartan-6 (45nm) devices use techniques that address both static power issues brought on by transistor leakage at advanced manufacturing processes, as well as dynamic power challenges brought on by the continuing push to higher performance operating characteristics, which increase clock rates. Besides the flexibility and cost benefits of being able to use these high-performance FPGAs in power-sensitive applications, they also require simpler power systems on PCBs, freeing up space, increasing reliability and further reducing total system costs.

Xilinx is currently shipping devices from both the Virtex-6 and Spartan-6 families. Already, more than 700 customers, representing 1,000 projects, are participating in the Virtex-6 and Spartan-6 FPGA early access program.

About the China Institute of Electronics

The China Institute of Electronics (CIE) under the administration of the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information is an academic institution with a 47-year history. CIE has 44 branches, covering all the fields of electronic information science and technology, including semiconductor, computer, communication, radar, navigation, microwave, radio and TV, electronic measurement, signal processing, EMC, electronic devices and electronic materials. The Institute also maintains good cooperative relationships with international academic organizations, including IEEE, IET, ISAP and KITE. In its long history, CIE has greatly promoted the prosperity and development of electronic information science and technology, the growth of electronic information science and technology talents and the integration of electronic information science and technology and the economy in China. Under the new situation, it has also served as a platform for exchanges and integration between industries.

About Xilinx

Xilinx is the worldwide leader in complete programmable logic solutions. For more information, visit www.xilinx.com/cn

XILINX, the Xilinx Logo, Virtex, Spartan, and other designated brands included herein are trademarks of Xilinx in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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