Date: 01/04/2012

Xilinx ships 28nm Virtex-7 X690T FPGAs

Xilinx has announced shipments of the Virtex-7 X690T FPGA. Shipments of footprint-compatible Virtex-7 X1140T FPGAs with 96 GTH transceivers to follow in May.

"Xilinx has taken its years of experience in serial transceivers - having shipped to date over 75 percent of all FPGAs that include serial transceivers - and combined that with the innovative low power, 28nm 7 series FPGA architecture to deliver a highly optimized family for the Wired Communication marketplace," said Tim Erjavec, senior director of FPGA platforms at Xilinx. "Customers can confidently implement their designs starting with Virtex-7 X690T FPGAs today and move up to larger FPGAs that provide the market-optimized ratio of resources when higher integration is required."

Xilinx quotes: By 2015, data crossing the global IP network is expected to surpass the zettabyte threshold, representing a 32 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over 2010 levels.* In particular, demand for IP-based video services continues to see exponential growth and has become a driving force in the development of next-generation Layer 2 network switch equipment that achieves the low latency and improved Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities needed to satisfy this demand.

"As consumers demand more narrowcast services from cable companies, equipment manufacturers are faced with the challenge of providing future-proof solutions that adapt to emerging standards that are constantly evolving," said Ross Q. Smith, CEO at RADX Technologies, Inc. "The EdgeQAM solution being developed by Xilinx and RADX benefit from the compatibility, flexibility and density of the Virtex-7 X690T FPGA to provide systems that substantially increase QAM channel density while staying inside existing power envelopes."

Xilinx has also announced the availability of the Virtex-6Q FPGA family supported with SECMON IP core, a secure platform for Aerospace and Defense (A&D) designs used in critical AT applications. This device is designed to protect against tampering and counterfeit devices.

Another leading FPGA vendor Altera also started shipping its 28-nm Cyclone V FPGAs. Cyclone V is suggested for applications in the industrial, wireless, wireline, military and automotive markets. Specfic suggested applications including protocol bridging, motor control, broadcast and handheld devices. The Cyclone family comes in six variants: the logic-only E, the 3.125-Gbps transceiver GX, the 5-Gbps transceiver GT, and the SE, SX and ST SoC FPGA variants with integrated dual-core ARM-based Hard Processor System (HPS).