Xilinx PCI Core Enables Low-Cost FPGA Solution

Electronic News, Feb 15, 1999

San Jose, Calif. -- Reflecting Xilinx's strategy of moving quickly to a 0.35-micron process technology to reduce component costs and address high-volume consumer applications, the company announced an FPGA-based PCI core solution designed to compete with standard PCI chipsets in high-volume applications. The new LogiCORE PCI32 Spartan XL core was meant to enable OEM customers to integrate a fully compliant, 32-bit, 33 MHz PCI interface, one or more scalable FIFOs and custom logic on a single Xilinx Spartan XL FPGA at prices as low as $6.40. According to the company, designers can use the highly integrated and flexible Xilinx PCI solution to significantly reduce the cost of new high-volume applications such as consumer PC add-in boards as well as industrial CompactPCI boards, previously implemented with standard PCI chips in combination with one or more PLDs, or with ASICs.

The new LogiCORE PCI32 Spartan XL core, an addition to ``Xilinx PCI'' announced last year, is a PCI Master and Slave interface. It is designed to operate with the latest low-cost, 3.3-volt Xilinx Spartan XL FPGAs, allowing zero wait-state, fully-compliant 5-volt and 3.3-volt PCI designs.

The LogiCORE PCI32 core operates with the XCS20XL, XCS30XL and XCS40XL Spartan XL devices, with maximum densities of 20K, 30K and 40K system gates.