SAN JOSE, Calif., January 30, 2002 —Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX) today announced that its Virtex?-II FPGAs have been designed into the high performance FlexBench ™ modular rapid prototyping system developed by Italtel. Based in Milan, Italy, the company is one of the world's leading suppliers of telecommunications networks.

The configurable array of multiple Virtex-II FPGAs, combined with the Xilinx? ChipScope™ Integrated Logic Analyzer (ILA) tool, addresses performance limitations and design flow bottlenecks experienced by many developers using traditional evaluation boards. The Xilinx Virtex-II FPGAs were chosen for their high speed, high gate count, on-chip JTAG and ChipScope ILA capability that allows the user to view all the internal signals and nodes within the FPGA. Modeling large systems for carrier class networking, digital video or similar applications also requires very large FPGAs with ample routing resources. 

“The ability to observe the internal operations of the logic in an FPGA is a real benefit that speeds up system design,” said Marco Pavesi, FlexBench project leader at Italtel.  “Without ChipScope, a design problem may take days to resolve, but now it can be solved in hours. In order to achieve the performance Italtel required, we used the largest and fastest Virtex-II FPGAs to develop FlexBench.” 

Italtel has successfully used the Virtex-II based FlexBench to enhance the switching core of its iMSS (Italtel multi-service solution).  The company is currently discussing potential sales channels for FlexBench with several EDA companies.

“Italtel is the first Xilinx customer to build such a powerful, extensible tool for rapid prototyping,” said Alan Matthews, director of European marketing for Xilinx. “FlexBench establishes a significant new performance benchmark for the EDA industry.”

The FlexBench motherboard is populated by FlexPlug™ modules that conform to an open standard form factor.  Each FlexPlug features an innovative three-dimensional interconnect which connects each FPGA to six others through channels implemented by a broad mesh of high-performance pass-transistors of 0.1 nanosecond propagation delay. These are configurable from zero to 222 functional wires, with 8-bit granularity, using the FlexBench configuration and debug tool across the FPGA’s JTAG port.  This tool, named DiaFlex™, was developed by Temento Systems of Grenoble, France, working with Italtel.

A single FlexBench rack may host up to 18 FlexPlugs, providing up to 20 million equivalent gates by using the Xilinx Virtex-II FPGA.  Pad-to-pad delay is 4 nanoseconds for point-to-point connections.  Taking account of FPGA hold and setup times, FlexBench easily exceeds 100 MHz performance.  The FlexBench™ clock structure provides eight different global clocks with minimal skew.

The high gate count of the Virtex-II family allows multiple IP blocks to be implemented in a single FPGA without incurring design flow slowdown.  The modular FlexBench concept will allow FlexPlug prototyping modules to be designed for successive new generations of FPGAs.  By choosing Virtex-II, Italtel has linked the performance of its FlexBench platform to the FPGA family roadmap, and will be able to increase performance alongside future FPGA enhancements.

The Xilinx ChipScope ILA enables FlexBench to answer one of the most prominent limitations of current prototyping platforms: effective debugging. The ChipScope ILA tool  brings advanced functionality that customers need to debug and verify their designs that previously was available only in high-end logic analysis equipment. ChipScope ILA actually embeds logic analyzer cores into the FPGA design. These logic cores allow the user to view all the internal signals and nodes within an FPGA. ChipScope ILA supports user selectable data channels from 1 to 256.

FlexBench provides a platform for modular prototyping, saving development teams the complex and time-consuming task of developing their own multi-FPGA board for verification purposes.  Alongside Xilinx, Italtel has worked with other technology partners including Temento Systems to ensure a non-proprietary tool chain.

Patrice Deroux-Dauphin, Temento System CEO, says: "I think that FlexBench will be a real breakthrough in the rapid prototyping market segment. 

The verification challenge requires observability and at test system speed. These two objectives are hit due to the contribution of Temento Systems with its DiaFlex tool suite on one side and Italtel in the other one. From our generic platform called DiaTem, Temento created the Diaflex, a software monitoring tool able to configure FlexBench hardware, download applications and provide interactive debugging through a PCI -JTAG interface board. This collaboration is a typical example where synergy of companies and competencies contribute to maximize efficiency and speed up time to market.".

RTL partitioning and compilation of customer’s applications is performed using Synplicity’s Certify tool. Other technology partners include Oktet Systems and Mistel.

About Italtel
Italtel is one of the world’s leading suppliers of telecommunications networks. Its core business is the design, development and implementation of integrated voice/data networks, based on its own multiservices platform, and the offer of network business services. Its solutions are intended for companies such as traditional carriers, new operators, Internet Service Providers and major corporations. Italtel has 80 years experience in the design of communication systems, and maintains its leadership position as a developer of networks integrating diverse elements (access, transport, switching, routers) through network know-how and systems integration competencies. The company has about 3,600 employees, of whom 46 percent work in leading-edge ICT research areas: broadband networks, voice/data integration and advanced network management systems. Further information is available on the Italtel web site: www.italtel.com

About Temento
Temento Systems is a Design and Test Automation Software Company established in 1995, with the objective of becoming a quality provider of Electronic Test Automation (ETA) Software Tools to the world’s electronic products Manufacturers. Temento Systems delivers automated test platforms and solutions for ICs, Boards, Multi-Chips Modules and Systems. Based on an original concept Temento Systems solutions offers a real breakthrough in the test of Digital and Mixed devices. Temento Systems principal executive offices, design, marketing and sales are located at Montbonnot Grenoble, France. 
Temento Systems mission is to bring to the market very advanced test tools for the design of the test, the test and the debug of devices and systems. Further information is available on the Temento web site: http://www.temento.com/

Xilinx is the leading supplier of complete programmable logic solutions, including advanced integrated circuits, software design tools, predefined system functions delivered as intellectual property 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, aerospace, defense, low power portable and consumer markets.  For more information, visit the Xilinx web site at www.xilinx.com.

Tamara Snowden                                             Andrea Fionda 
Xilinx, Inc.                                                           Xilinx Europe 
tamara.snowden@xilinx.com                          andrea.fionda@xilinx.com 
(408) 879-6146                                                +44 870 7350526 

Marialuisa Cordone                                         Patrice Deroux-Dauphin
Italtel External Relations                                  Temento Systems
Marialuisa.cordone@italtel.it                          patrice.deroux-dauphin@temento.com
+39 02 4388 3771                                           +33 456 52 60 00