A popular producer of
programmable logic devices.
Founded in
1984,
Xilinx was one of the first companies to take programmable logic devices beyond the realm of
MSI PLDs and
PLAs. Since then, they have become a popular source for
FPGAs and
CPLDs as well as predesigned logic
intellectual property. Xilinx distributes free design tools (
Webpack ISE) for experimenters, students, and others needing to implement low gate count designs, and will provide free design support and services for large customers. Their devices range from small CPLDs (50 gates) to ridiculously large FPGAs (10 million gates), and include support chips such as configuration memories and
JTAG loaders.
Competitors include
Altera,
Cypress, and
Atmel.
Source: Xilinx Corporate Backgrounder, http://www.xilinx.com/company/press/grounder.pdf