SAN JOSE, Calif., February 5, 2002 —Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) today announced the availability of new Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) intellectual property cores and services to support the growing demand for encryption/decryption and security applications. Through Xilinx™ partners Amphion Semiconductor, Inc., CAST Inc., and Helion Technology, customers now have access to a wide range of AES cores and design services. When used with Xilinx Spartan™-IIE FPGAs, the AES cores provide a compelling low-cost solution for a wide range of consumer applications such as digital set-top boxes, secure electronic financial transactions, and video broadcasting. AES is projected to be the next generation block-cipher cryptographic industry standard algorithm for protecting sensitive data streams. 

“Security has become a hot issue in recent months and Xilinx is committed to providing the latest solutions to meet the growing demand for encryption," said Per Holmberg, senior product marketing manager for IP Solutions at Xilinx. “Inherently, FPGA solutions offer unprecedented flexibility allowing equipment manufacturers to implement several methods of data encryption on the same device."

FPGAs enable high performance encryption solutions that offer real-time encryption/decryption of multi-Gbps data streams. In the digital video broadcast space for example, broadcasters are using AES to encrypt video streams that are sent to the customer premise. Using an FPGA-based approach gives broadcasters additional flexibility to trade-off the cost of an encryption solution over the number of customers that can receive encrypted video broadcasts.  For more information about Xilinx digital video technology (DVT) solutions, visit the company’s eSP Web portal at www.xilinx.com/esp/dvt

Core Availability
Amphion Semiconductor, an AllianceCORE™ partner and newest member of the Common License Consortium, is now shipping a complete family of AES encryption and decryption cores. The cores are optimized for use in Xilinx Virtex-II and Spartan-IIE FPGAs. The family includes standard, compact, high-speed and ultra-high-speed versions of each core so customers can choose an implementation that fits their specific application. 

"Spartan-IIE is an ideal target for our Compact AES encryption core in cost-sensitive consumer electronics,” said Stephen Farson, vice president of Engineering at Amphion.

CAST, Inc, a founding member of the AllianceCORE program and Common License Consortium, is offering new encryption cores supporting AES, DES and triple-DES algorithms. The cores are optimized for Xilinx low-cost Spartan-II series and all Virtex series FPGAs.

"Customers for our line of general purpose IP cores are looking for encryption functions more and more often," said Newton Abdalla, CAST's vice president for IP. "They love the small, flexible, FPGA solutions we can offer through our partnership with Xilinx."

Helion Technology, a Xilinx XPERTs design services provider, is offering design services and encryption solutions, including AES. Helion is a consulting firm providing expertise in the development of DSP algorithms and IP cores for data security applications.

All the cores and services are available for purchase today directly from the partners. Information can found on the web at www.xilinx.com/ipcenter. The Amphion and CAST cores are available under the terms of the SignOnce IP License, the industry's first multi-vendor common license for FPGA-based IP (www.xilinx.com/ipcenter/signonce.htm).

About Xilinx
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, high-reliability/military, low power portable and consumer markets. For more information, visit the Xilinx website at www.xilinx.com.