Xilinx - Current Family Lines

Current Family Lines

Prior to 2010, Xilinx has offered two main FPGA families: the high-performance Virtex series and the high-volume Spartan series, with a cheaper EasyPath option for ramping to volume production. The company also provides two CPLD lines, the CoolRunner and the 9500 series. Each model series has been released in multiple generations since its launch. With the introduction of its 28 nm FPGAs in June 2010, Xilinx replaced the high-volume Spartan family with a Kintex family and the low-cost Artix family.

In newer FPGA products, Xilinx minimized total power consumption by adopting a high-K metal gate (HKMG) process which allows for low static power consumption. At the 28 nm node, static power is a significant portion of the total power dissipation of a device and in some cases is the dominant factor. Through the use of a HKMG process, Xilinx has reduced power use while increasing logic capacity. Virtex-6 and Spartan-6 FPGA families are said to consume 50 percent less power, and have up to twice the logic capacity compared to the previous generation of Xilinx FPGAs.

In June, 2010 Xilinx introduced the Xilinx 7 series, the Virtex-7, Kintex-7, and Artix-7 families, promising improvements in system power, performance, capacity, and price. These new FPGA families are manufactured using TSMC's 28 nm HKMG process. The 28 nm series 7 devices feature a 50 percent power reduction compared to the company's 40 nm devices and offer capacity of up to 2 million logic cells. Less than one year after announcing the 7 series 28 nm FPGAs, Xilinx shipped the world’s first 28 nm FPGA device, the Kintex-7, making this the programmable market’s fastest product rollout. In March 2011, Xilinx introduced the Zynq-7000 family, which integrates a complete ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor-based system on a 28 nm FPGA for system architects and embedded software developers.