Avnet Electronics Marketing Launches Evaluation Kit for Virtex-4 SX; First Kit Aimed at Optimizing DSP Applications within the Virtex-4 Platform FPGA Family.

PHOENIX -- Avnet Electronics Marketing, an operating group of Avnet Inc. (NYSE: AVT) today released the Xilinx(TM) Virtex-4(TM) SX35 Evaluation Kit providing designers with a powerful platform for developing very high-performance signal processing systems. The SX35 evaluation kit, developed by Avnet Design Services, features an XC4VSX35-FF668 device optimized for digital signal processing (DSP) applications. Engineers will be able to take advantage of the feature-rich kit for learning, evaluation, prototyping, benchmarking, and development. The integrated peripherals give the developer the capability of testing how the Virtex-4 SX FPGA can be used with a variety of output devices, memory options and bus architectures. The Virtex-4 SX family provides blazing DSP performance with unrivalled economy, providing the ideal solution for a broad array of system functions including implementing intermediate frequency (IF) to baseband down-conversion channels, spread spectrum systems and high definition H.264 and MPEG-4 encode/decode algorithms.

The kit comes complete with a robust selection of memory devices, graphic displays and connectivity options. To make it easier for designers to get to work right away using the evaluation platform, the kit also includes a 5V wall-mount power-supply as a standard feature. The Virtex-4 SX35 Evaluation Kit adds to Avnet's suite of Xilinx Virtex-4 related kits which also includes the Virtex-4 LX25 and Virtex-4 LX60 Evaluation Kits.

"Enabling DSP algorithms within any application can be a challenging task for System Designers," said Jim Schaeffer, senior vice president of Avnet Design Services. "Engineers can leverage our SX35 kit to make this process significantly easier."

"DSP is clearly a focus for Xilinx and having the tools to assist our customers is mandatory for our success," said Jerry Banks, DSP Solutions marketing director at Xilinx. "Avnet has delivered a robust and stable development system to aid customers in the adoption of our breakthrough technology."

About Avnet Electronics Marketing

Avnet Electronics Marketing is the largest operating group of Phoenix-based Avnet Inc., a Fortune 500 company with fiscal 2004 sales of more than $10 billion, and one of the world's largest technology marketing, distribution and services companies. Avnet Electronics Marketing, Americas (EMA) serves electronic original equipment manufacturers (EOEMs) and electronic manufacturing services (EMS) providers in North America and Brazil distributing electronic components from leading manufacturers and providing associated services. The company's Web site is located at www.em.avnet.com.

About Xilinx Virtex-4 Platform FPGAs

Enabled by the revolutionary ASMBL (Advanced Silicon Modular Block) architecture and advanced 90nm triple-oxide technology, Virtex-4 FPGAs deliver more options, higher performance and lower power than any other FPGA family available today. With more than 100 technical innovations, the Virtex-4 family consists of 17 devices and three domain-optimized platforms: Virtex-4 LX FPGAs optimized for logic-intensive designs, Virtex-4 SX FPGAs optimized for high-performance signal processing, and Virtex-4 FX FPGAs optimized for high-speed serial connectivity and embedded processing. A multi-platform approach makes it possible for customers to select the optimal mix of resources for their application to achieve the highest functionality and breakthrough performance at the lowest cost. Devices are shipping now. For more information on the Virtex-4 product family, visit www.xilinx.com/virtex4.

The Virtex-4 SX35 Evaluation Kit is available for purchase today. Contact your local Avnet Electronics Marketing sales office or visit the Web at www.em.avnet.com/v4sx35e for more information.

Ordering part numbers and prices are:

ADS-XLX-V4SX-EVL35          With XC4VSX35           $449.00

The Virtex-4 SX35 Evaluation Kit includes the following features:

    Xilinx Virtex-4 SX35 FPGA
    USB 2.0 controller
    Xilinx platform FLASH
    10/100 Ethernet PHY
    8 MB FLASH
    128x64 graphical display
    32 MB DDR SDRAM
    RS-232 console interface
    Clock multiplier/divider
    AvBus connectivity
    Wall Mount Power Supply (5V)

    Documentation:
    User's Guide
    Bill of Materials
    Schematics