Forrest Couch, Managing Editor Xcell@xilinx.com

Continuing Excellence

IIn case you haven’t heard, Xilinx recently announced its new Virtex-4™ family of FPGAs. In this special edition of Xcell Journal, you’ll find articles devoted exclusively to Virtex-4 business viewpoints, system design challenges, engineering solutions, and engineering references.

Our “View from the Top” article is by Erich Goetting, Xilinx Vice President and General Manager of the Advanced Products Division. Erich presents an overview of the new Virtex-4 family, and gives you a guided tour of some of the new Virtex-4 technologies, as well as the inspiration and rationale behind them. Other articles in the Business Viewpoint section discuss how these new Virtex-4 devices, based on 90 nm technology, have greatly expanded high-performance processing and system integration.

You’ll also find technical articles written by Xilinx marketing, applications, and development staff, as well as our partners and customers, including:

• System Design Challenges articles emphasize the Virtex-4 family advantages and leadership themes. These technical articles outline design challenges and demonstrate how the Virtex-4 solution addresses these challenges.
• Engineering Solutions articles demonstrate some of the key capabilities of Virtex-4 FPGAs and how they are used in a design. These articles provide in-depth descriptions of Virtex-4 features, IP, and tools.
• The Engineering Reference section describes some of the Virtex-4 hardware development platforms and other design solutions, to help you determine which platform is best for your application and design task.

It’s Time to Re-Subscribe
This issue marks the 16th anniversary of our Xcell Journal. From its humble beginnings in the fourth quarter of 1988 as an eight-page, two-color newsletter, the journal has grown into an award-winning publication printed in five languages and distributed in 144 countries with a circulation of more than 60,000 readers.

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I want to thank all of you, our readers, for your continued interest and support of the Xcell Journal. Please feel free to drop me a note at xcell@xilinx.com about your suggestions on how we may improve. I’d like to hear from you.