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PHILIPS AND XILINX COLLABORATE IN DESIGN
OF LOW COST PCI EXPRESS SOLUTIONS
Jointly developed designs enable easy
migration from legacy PC bus architectures
to PCI Express high-speed interface
EINDHOVEN, The Netherlands and SAN JOSE, Calif., - September 20,
2004 - Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) and Xilinx,
Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) today announced plans to cooperate in the
design of semiconductor hardware and intellectual property related
to the PCI Express interface. The collaboration is expected to
result in PCI Express solutions that help current and prospective
customers easily migrate from legacy PC bus architectures to the
new, simplified PCI Express high-speed interface architecture. The
move to PCI Express by consumer product manufacturers will
ultimately benefit consumers, offering fast and easy transfer of
video and graphics from PCs to home theatre equipment.
"Our customers are looking for an easy migration path from current
bus architectures to the high-speed capabilities of PCI Express. We
are pleased to work closely with Philips, a clear leader in PCI
Express PHY devices to bring about such a solution," said Mark
Aaldering, vice president of IP Solutions and the Embedded
Processing Division at Xilinx. "By working closely with Philips, we
hope to bring the benefits of programmability and PCI Express to an
even broader audience - to run premium movies and sound on PCs and
other emerging consumer electronics systems and products."
"Xilinx has an outstanding track record with its work related to
PCI technology, and its Spartan family of low-cost FPGAs provide a
broad customer base with a great deal of flexibility for the design
of PCs, peripherals, consumer-oriented electronics products and
other systems benefiting from the performance and elegance of PCI
Express," said Frank Caris, general manager of Emerging Products,
Philips Semiconductors. "We look forward to working together to
bring new possibilities for simplified, fast connections within the
Connected Home as well as a multitude of other peripheral and
embedded applications."
Based on Xilinx 90nm Spartan-3 FPGAs and Philips PCI Express PHY
devices, the solution provides maximum flexibility benefits
addressing a wide variety of applications across many volume
ranges. PCI Express is the successor to Intel's PCI and PCI-X
architectures used in PCs throughout the world, offering scalable
bandwidth from 2.5 to 80 Gbps and advanced features to meet the
Input/Output needs of next generation systems. Its layered
architecture allows future add-ons for connections to copper,
optical and other emerging physical signaling media. Ideal for
making the transition from legacy interfaces to PCI Express, the
solution supports eXPIPE interfaces between the physical and
logical layers.
The PCI Express bus interface offers a number of inherent
improvements beyond the pure speed play. It is a two-wire
connection replacing current 16- or 32-wire bus connections. It
also puts out less electro magnetic interference (EMI), in addition
to requiring fewer layers on the printed circuit board, thereby
reducing manufacturing and material costs.
Philips and Xilinx expect to have further announcements related to
PCI Express technology activities in early 2005.
About Xilinx Spartan-3 FPGAs
The Xilinx Spartan-3 family is the only 90nm FPGA family in
production and is the world's lowest-cost FPGA, offering unrivaled
price points with more density and performance features than any
other device in its class. Xilinx Spartan Series FPGAs can be found
in a wide number of consumer electronic devices throughout the
world today.
About Philips PHY Devices
Philips is a leader in wired and wireless PHY solutions in a range
of semiconductor connectivity products including USB, wireless
local area network and personal area network devices. The PCI
Express PHY is designed for high-performance physical layer
devices. It is an easy-to-use, low-power solution with excellent
timing characteristics.
About Royal Philips Electronics
Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI)
is one of the world's biggest electronics companies and Europe's
largest, with sales of $32.8 billion (EUR 29 billion) in 2003. With
activities in the three interlocking domains of healthcare,
lifestyle and technology and 165,600 employees in more than 60
countries, it has market leadership positions in medical diagnostic
imaging and patient monitoring, color television sets, electric
shavers, lighting and one-chip TV products. News from Philips is
located at www.semiconductors.philips.com.
About Xilinx
Xilinx is the worldwide leader in complete programmable logic
solutions. For more information, visit www.xilinx.com.
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