Xilinx AllianceCore Partners Announce Four 8-Bit Microcontrollers for Xilinx FPGAs

SAN JOSE, Calif., March 21, 2000 - Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) and AllianceCORE™ partners Dolphin Integration SA and CAST, Inc. announced today four 8051 8-bit microcontroller core products for Spartan™-II and Virtex™ series FPGAs. Dolphin Integration developed new versions of the successful Flip8051-PR AllianceCORE product expanding the availability for new Xilinx FPGAs. CAST, Inc. offers three new cores that include D80530, D80530C, and R80515 products.

The Flip8051-PR core from Dolphin and the R80515 core from CAST run up to eight times the performance of a legacy 8051 microcontroller and target embedded applications in telecom, automotive, satellite, voice recognition, image processing, military, and consumer markets. These products will be showcased at IP2000 in Santa Clara, Calif. March 20-22, 2000 and at DATE-2000 in Paris, France, March 27-30, 2000.

High Speed Flexible Solutions from CAST

CAST provides three 8051-based microcontroller cores, each targeted for different embedded applications. These include a D80530 core, a compact D80530C, and an R80515 RISC core. The modular cores facilitate ease-of-integration with user peripherals for system-on-chip (SOC) design. The cores use the unique features of Xilinx FPGAs to achieve low gate densities and high performance.

The compact D80530C core targets high volume consumer applications with Spartan-II FPGAs. The Virtex-E version of the RISC R80515 core has a clock frequency of 40 MHz providing performance equivalent to a legacy 8051 microcontroller running at 320 MHz. The D80530 core offers low gate densities and a clock frequency of 66 MHz in Virtex-E FPGAs.

"The 8051 microcontrollers are used in applications that range from state-of-the-art telecom and space applications to household consumer goods," said Newton Abdalla, vice-president of IP group at CAST. "We target the entire 8051 market space with Spartan-II versions for high- volume consumer markets, and Virtex and Virtex-E versions for high-density SOC integration."

CAST provides a complete development package consisting of synthesis and simulation scripts, test benches, example assembler programs, example memory and peripheral interface modules, evaluation board, and customization. The D80530, D80530C, and R80515 start at $13,500 for the netlist versions.

Availability

All the above products are available today and can be purchased directly from Dolphin Integration and CAST respectively. The datasheets can be downloaded from the Xilinx IP Center (www.xilinx.com/ipcenter), a comprehensive resource for system-level intellectual property and services.