SAN JOSE, California, October 25, 2004 - Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX), in association with Dr. Howard Johnson, today announced immediate availability of a unique new two-part DVD tutorial on signal integrity (SI) techniques for RocketIO transceivers. Targeted at digital designers and system engineers pushing designs to the upper limits of speed and distance, the tutorials provide critical information as highlighted by Dr. Johnson, the pre-eminent SI authority.  In the tutorials Dr. Howard Johnson identifies and solves high-speed design challenges using Xilinx FPGAs with RocketIO transceivers in a series of high quality laboratory sessions.  Further, the SI techniques highlighted provide proven methodologies for designing with all three of Xilinx FPGA families incorporating RocketIOs: Virtex-II Pro, Virtex-II Pro X and Virtex-4 FPGAs. 

According to Dr. Johnson, “The inclusion of high speed serial I/O such as RocketIO in an FPGA has made it the preferred system connectivity solution over traditional techniques. However, the SI challenges of high-speed serial design are still new for most designers well versed in the parallel I/O technologies.  These tutorials highlight the fundamental principals of serial I/O so anyone can correctly apply this revolutionary technology to their system.” 

“As a part of the High-Speed Serial Initiative to bring serial I/O technology to the masses, Xilinx made a commitment to the industry to make serial design as simple as possible,” said Ray Johnson, vice president and general manager of the Communications Technology Division at Xilinx.  “ We decided to partner with Dr. Johnson based upon the fact that he can take very complex concepts and distill them down to easy to use techniques that can be implemented by every designer.” 

About The DVD Tutorials
Each DVD runs approximately 45 minutes and contains introductory remarks by Dr. Johnson, detailed technical discussions on topics relevant to high-speed serial design and live product demonstrations. These tutorials will leave the viewer with a clear understanding of key challenges essential to high-speed performance. An innovative teaching aspect included in the DVD titled “Loss Budgeting for RocketIO Transceivers” is the use of a 40:1 scale model of a high speed serial backplane giving the viewer a good understanding of the characteristics of the physical media used in a backplane channel.  Other topics covered include: Link Description, Microstrips and Striplines, Crosstalk and Coupling, Loss Budgeting, PCB Transitions, Backplane Connectors, Stripline Losses and Equalization.

License, Price and Availability
The two-part DVD tutorial is available for $19.95 (including shipping and handling) from the Xilinx Online Store at www.xilinx.com/store/dvd/.  Previews prior to purchasing can be arranged by contacting a Xilinx sales representative.  Alternatively the DVDs will be bundled with both of the instructor-led training courses Xilinx Education Services currently offers within its High-Speed Design curriculum path.  Customers who register for and attend either the “Designing with Multi-Gigabit Serial I/O” course or the “Signal Integrity for High-Speed Memory and Processor I/O” course will automatically receive the two-part DVD tutorial in addition to course manuals as a special bonus.  For more information on Xilinx Education Services, including course and registration details please visit http://www.xilinx.com/education. 

About High-Speed Serial Initiative
 The Xilinx High-Speed Serial Initiative, announced in October 2002, is designed to accelerate the industry move to serial I/O by providing comprehensive solutions to ensure customers have first time serial design success. Over the past two years, Xilinx has provided many of the critical components to build the necessary design infrastructure including RocketLABs, RocketIO Design Services, detailed characterization reports, in-field high speed design expertise, development platforms, pre-tested intellectual property cores, RocketIO training and support and third party signal integrity tools. Visit www.xilinx.com/serialsolution for more information.

About Dr. Howard Johnson
A highly acclaimed independent design consultant, Dr. Johnson pioneered the development of many new technologies including Phonemail, the first integrated voice messaging system; Gigabit Ethernet, as chief technical editor for that standard; and many other high-speed computing and communications architectures. An engaging and informative author, Dr. Johnson has written three nationally acclaimed books: High-Speed Digital Design: A Handbook of Black Magic, High-Speed Signal Propagation: Advance Black Magic and Fast Ethernet: Dawn of a New Network.  Dr. Johnson has also written numerous articles for magazines and industry journals. His “High-Speed Digital Design” seminar reaches more than 1,000 engineers annually. Companies all over the world that specialize in digital electronics understand this seminar is the definitive course in SI and high-speed digital design.  He is the SI columnist for EDN Magazine and lectures regularly at Oxford University and selected corporate sites worldwide. For additional related materials, see www.sigcon.com. 

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

NOTE: The content of the DVDs are owned and copyrighted by Xilinx. Copyright © 2004 Xilinx, Inc. All rights reserved. Except as stated herein, none of the material may be copied, reproduced, distributed, republished, downloaded, displayed, posted or transmitted in any form or by any means including, but not limited to, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written consent of Xilinx. You also may not "mirror" any material contained on this DVD without express written consent from Xilinx. Permission is granted to display, copy, distribute and download the materials for personal, non-commercial use only, provided you don't modify or alter the materials and you retain any and all copyright and other proprietary notices contained in these materials. This permission terminates automatically if you breach any of these terms or conditions. Upon termination, you must immediately destroy any printed or copied materials. Any unauthorized use of any material contained on this DVD may violate copyright laws, trademark laws, the laws of privacy and publicity, and communications regulations and statutes. 
 

Editorial contact:

Paula Larson

Xilinx Public Relations

(408) 879-6802

paula.larson@xilinx.com