Xilinx

Xilinx, Inc.
Company type	Public (until acquisition)
Industry	Technology, Semiconductor
Founded	1984; 42 years ago
Founder	Ross Freeman, Bernard Vonderschmitt, James V. Barnett II
Defunct	June 2023
Fate	Acquired by AMD; brand retired and products integrated under AMD name
Headquarters	San Jose, United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Victor Peng (CEO), Brice Hill (CFO)
Products	Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), Complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs), design software, intellectual property cores
Number of employees	4,900 (2021)
Parent	AMD (from 2022 to 2023)

Xilinx, Inc. () was an American enterprise in the technology and semiconductor sector, focusing on programmable logic solutions. It was the trailblazer behind the first commercially successful field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and was a pioneer of the fabless manufacturing approach.

Established in 1984 by Ross Freeman, Bernard Vonderschmitt, and James V. Barnett II, Xilinx became publicly traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange in 1990. The company’s primary offerings encompassed FPGAs and CPLDs, catering to a worldwide clientele across diverse industries.

In October 2020, AMD revealed plans to acquire Xilinx for $60 billion, a deal finalized in February 2022 through an all-stock agreement. Following the acquisition, Xilinx functioned as an AMD subsidiary until June 2023, when its brand was retired and its products were integrated under the AMD name.

At its height in 2021, Xilinx reported revenues of $3.15 billion, operating income of $753 million, and net income amounting to $646 million, employing close to 4,900 people globally. Leadership included CEO Victor Peng and CFO Brice Hill. The company’s innovative strategies and management secured a dominant position in the programmable logic market and played a crucial role in enhancing AMD’s competitive standing.

Company overview

Founded in 1984 within Silicon Valley, Xilinx was headquartered in San Jose, United States. Its operations spanned internationally with offices located in Longmont, Dublin, Singapore, Hyderabad, Beijing, Shanghai, Brisbane, Tokyo, and Yerevan.

Bill Carter, former CTO and current fellow at Xilinx, explained that the company’s name combines the chemical symbol for silicon (Si) with “linx,” representing programmable connections linking logic blocks; the 'X's at each end symbolize these links.

The product lineup from Xilinx featured an extensive variety of field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs), along with design software, intellectual property cores, and reference designs. Holding a commanding 51% share of the programmable logic market, Xilinx surpassed competitors like Altera (34%), Actel (now part of Microsemi), and Lattice Semiconductor.

Early history

In 1984, former Zilog employees—Ross Freeman, Bernard Vonderschmitt, and James V Barnett II—founded Xilinx with headquarters based in San Jose. Freeman had envisioned semiconductor chips functioning like blank tapes that users could program themselves—a novel idea at the time requiring a high transistor count.

Although generic integrated circuits were more lucrative then, FPGAs offered the potential to commercialize customized circuits effectively. After failing to obtain investment from Zilog for this new market, Freeman and Barnett joined forces with Vonderschmitt to raise $4.5 million in venture capital aimed at developing the first commercially viable FPGA. The company was incorporated in 1984 and introduced its initial product by 1985.

By late 1987, Xilinx had secured over $18 million in venture funding and achieved nearly $14 million in yearly revenue, signaling early success and expansion.

Expansion

Between 1988 and 1990, the company's sales increased significantly, rising from $30 million to $100 million. During this timeframe, Monolithic Memories Inc. (MMI), a major investor, was purchased by AMD, which led Xilinx to terminate their partnership and proceed with a public offering on Nasdaq in 1989. To accommodate the surge in orders from prominent clients like HP, Apple Inc., IBM, and Sun Microsystems, the company moved into a new facility located in San Jose, California.

By the mid-1990s, the FPGA market saw heightened competition as new entrants appeared. Nevertheless, Xilinx’s revenue grew to $550 million by 1995. The company expanded its international operations extensively, establishing a strong presence across India, Asia, and Europe, thereby enhancing its global market share.

By fiscal year 2018, Xilinx’s revenue had climbed to $2.53 billion. Under the leadership of CEO Moshe Gavrielov—appointed in 2008 and bringing extensive experience in the EDA and ASIC sectors—the company introduced specialized design platforms that integrated FPGAs with software, intellectual property cores, development boards, and kits. This strategic approach provided a cost-effective alternative to traditional ASICs and ASSPs, broadening Xilinx’s product offerings and strengthening its market position.

On January 4, 2018, Victor Peng, formerly the chief operating officer, took over as CEO from Gavrielov, maintaining a focus on innovation and business expansion.

Recent history

In 2011, Xilinx launched the Virtex-7 2000T, marking the industry’s first use of 2.5D stacked silicon with silicon interposer technology. This advancement allowed for larger FPGA designs beyond the limits of conventional monolithic silicon. The technology progressed to combine previously separate components by integrating FPGAs with transceivers through heterogeneous process technology, improving data bandwidth while lowering power consumption.

Former CEO Moshe Gavrielov emphasized the company’s evolution from supplying programmable logic to offering “all things programmable,” driven by innovations such as the Zynq-7000 SoC series that merge ARM processors with FPGAs alongside new software tools. Xilinx’s product lineup expanded to include Virtex, Kintex, and Artix families tailored for diverse applications. In 2012, the company introduced the Vivado Design Suite—a next-generation environment for SoC design—and by 2014 had shipped its initial 20nm UltraScale FPGAs.

In September 2017, Xilinx collaborated with Amazon to promote FPGA utilization through AWS Marketplace by providing software tools that simplify creating and managing FPGA-based machine images.

In July 2018, Xilinx acquired DeepPhi Technology, a Chinese startup specializing in machine learning, to enhance its AI capabilities. Later that year, Virtex UltraScale+ FPGAs powered cloud video encoding solutions delivering GPU-level streaming quality at substantially reduced bitrates. The Zynq UltraScale+ family earned SIL 3 HFT1 safety certification in November 2018, qualifying it for AI-enabled applications in automotive, aerospace, and industrial sectors. Partnerships included enabling ZF Friedrichshafen AG's ProAI automotive control unit for autonomous driving.

Also in late 2018, Xilinx transitioned its defense-grade UltraScale+ portfolio onto TSMC’s 16nm FinFET process node, launching the industry’s first defense-grade heterogeneous multiprocessor SoCs. The Alveo data center accelerator card series expanded with models such as U200, U250, and U280 featuring high-bandwidth memory (HBM2) and advanced interconnect technologies. Dell EMC certified the Alveo U200 for accelerating high-performance computing workloads.

In January 2019, Xilinx issued a cease-and-desist notice regarding trademark usage but later retracted it following public scrutiny. Baidu announced its EdgeBoard AI acceleration platform based on Xilinx’s Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC architecture to support edge AI scenarios including smart surveillance and advanced driver assistance systems.

In February 2019, Xilinx broadened its Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC portfolio targeting comprehensive sub-6 GHz frequency bands critical for 5G networks. It partnered with Samsung on South Korea's inaugural commercial deployment of 5G New Radio utilizing Xilinx’s UltraScale+ platform and revealed plans for Versal ACAP products designed for 5G applications. Additionally, an HDMI 2.1 IP subsystem was introduced capable of processing up to 8K UHD video streams.

In April 2019, Xilinx agreed to acquire Solarflare Communications to merge network interface card technology with its FPGA and ACAP product lines. By August, it unveiled the Virtex Ultrascale+ VU19P FPGA—the largest globally—with an astonishing 35 billion transistors.

By June 2019, Xilinx shipped its first Versal adaptive compute acceleration platform (ACAP) chips engineered for AI-centric workloads and launched Vitis—a unified open-source software platform aimed at enhancing hardware flexibility.

Fiscal year 2019 represented a significant milestone as revenues surpassed $3 billion—a growth of 24%—driven by sectors including communications (41%), industrial/aerospace/defense (27%), data center/test measurement (18%), and automotive/broadcast/consumer (14%).

In August 2020, Subaru incorporated Xilinx chips into its advanced driver-assistance systems. The following month saw the introduction of the T1 Telco Accelerator card designed for open RAN implementations in 5G networks.

On October 27, 2020, AMD announced a $35 billion stock-for-stock acquisition of Xilinx that was finalized in February 2022. Following this merger, products were co-branded as AMD Xilinx until June 2023 when all offerings were unified under AMD branding.

In December 2020, Xilinx acquired assets from Falcon Computing Systems to enhance its open-source Vitis design environment focused on domain-specific accelerators.

April 2021 marked a collaboration with Mavenir aimed at expanding open 5G network capabilities alongside launching the Kria portfolio—compact system-on-modules (SOMs) equipped with pre-integrated software stacks designed to simplify development processes. In June of that year, Xilinx acquired German software firm Silexica to strengthen C/C++ development tools within its ecosystem.

Technology

Xilinx specializes in the design and development of programmable logic solutions, encompassing integrated circuits (ICs), software development tools, pre-designed intellectual property (IP) cores, design consulting, customer education, field engineering, and technical assistance. The company caters to manufacturers of electronic devices across sectors such as communications, industrial automation, consumer electronics, automotive, and data processing.

Notably, Xilinx's FPGAs have been employed in significant initiatives like the ALICE experiment at CERN, which studies the paths of subatomic particles. Collaborating with the United States Air Force Research Laboratory, Xilinx developed radiation-tolerant FPGAs tailored for satellite use—these devices demonstrate a thousandfold reduction in sensitivity to cosmic radiation compared to standard commercial chips. The Virtex-II Pro, Virtex-4, Virtex-5, and Virtex-6 FPGA series feature embedded PowerPC cores aimed at system-on-chip (SoC) designers.

The company’s extensive IP catalog spans from basic components such as BCD encoders to sophisticated subsystems including multi-gigabit networking cores and soft-core microprocessors like MicroBlaze and Picoblaze. Xilinx primarily utilizes the Vivado Design Suite as its integrated development environment (IDE), which supports design workflows from system-level down to IC implementation. Vivado includes tools for synthesizing algorithmic IP from C code, IP reuse management, system integration, and verification. A limited-feature free version called WebPACK Edition is also offered.

Xilinx provides the Embedded Developer's Kit (EDK) for designing with embedded PowerPC and MicroBlaze processors. Their System Generator for DSP tool facilitates digital signal processing designs on FPGAs. Among FPGA suppliers, Xilinx uniquely offers a native Linux-based freeware synthesis toolchain.

In 2010, Xilinx launched an extensible processing platform based on ARM Cortex-A9 cores that merges embedded processor programmability with FPGA adaptability. This architecture streamlines hardware development for embedded software engineers and supports a broad software ecosystem including ARM’s RealView tools, Eclipse IDEs, GNU toolchains, and the Xilinx Software Development Kit. The subsequent 2011 Zynq-7000 SoC platform integrates ARM multi-core processors with programmable logic and DSP blocks, targeting applications such as automotive advanced driver assistance systems, video surveillance, industrial automation, aerospace and defense sectors, as well as next-generation wireless technologies.

After introducing its 28 nm 7-series FPGAs, Xilinx adopted stacked silicon interconnect (SSI) technology—stacking multiple active FPGA dies on a silicon interposer—to expand capacity without relying solely on high-speed transceivers. The Virtex-7 2000T FPGA released in 2011 incorporates 6.8 billion transistors and equates to roughly 20 million ASIC gates. In 2012, the Virtex-7 HT family debuted heterogeneous FPGAs combining high-bandwidth transceivers optimized for power efficiency and compact size in Nx100G and 400G networking environments.

Xilinx acquired AutoESL Design Technologies in January 2011 to integrate SystemC-based high-level synthesis into its FPGA design tools, thereby extending its reach to C/C++ developers.

The Vivado Design Suite received an update in April 2012 that enhanced integration capabilities for programmable systems utilizing 3D stacked silicon interconnects, ARM processing units, analog mixed-signal IP cores, among others.

In July 2019, Xilinx expanded its video encoding portfolio by acquiring NGCodec to advance FPGA-accelerated solutions for streaming media, cloud gaming platforms, and mixed reality applications supporting codecs such as H.264/AVC, HEVC/H.265, VP9, AV1—with plans to incorporate H.266/VVC in the future.

By May 2020, Xilinx had established Adaptive Compute Clusters (XACC) at ETH Zurich along with other prominent academic institutions to foster research in adaptive compute acceleration for high-performance computing (HPC). These clusters consist of advanced servers outfitted with Xilinx Alveo accelerator cards and high-speed networking infrastructure designed to propel innovation in programmable logic technologies.

Family product lines

Prior to 2010, Xilinx's FPGA offerings consisted of the Virtex series targeting high-performance applications and the Spartan series designed for high-volume production, with an additional budget-friendly EasyPath variant. The company also produced two CPLD families: CoolRunner and the 9500 series. Each lineup underwent several generational updates. In June 2010, Xilinx unveiled its 28 nm FPGA devices, replacing the Spartan series with the Kintex family aimed at mid-tier markets and the Artix family focused on cost-sensitive segments.

The latest FPGA models from Xilinx incorporate a High-κ/Metal-Gate (HKMG) technology to minimize static power dissipation while enhancing logic density. The Virtex-6 and Spartan-6 series achieved up to a 50% reduction in power consumption alongside doubling their logic capacity relative to earlier versions.

In June 2010, the company introduced the 7 series—comprising Virtex-7, Kintex-7, and Artix-7—fabricated using TSMC’s 28 nm HKMG process. These parts delivered power savings up to 50% compared to their 40 nm predecessors and supported logic capacities reaching two million cells. Notably, the Kintex-7 was the first commercially shipped FPGA built on a 28 nm process. By March 2011, Xilinx expanded into embedded processing with the launch of the Zynq-7000 family, integrating ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processors on a 28 nm FPGA platform. The Spartan-7 series followed in May 2017, targeting markets where cost-efficiency is critical.

December 2013 saw the debut of the UltraScale lineup—Virtex UltraScale and Kintex UltraScale—constructed on TSMC’s 20 nm planar technology. Simultaneously, Xilinx announced its UltraScale+ MPSoC architecture (Zynq UltraScale+), fabricated using TSMC’s cutting-edge 16 nm FinFET node.

In March 2021, Xilinx strengthened its position in price-sensitive markets by introducing Artix and Zynq UltraScale+ devices produced on TSMC's 16 nm process, further bolstering competitiveness in cost-conscious segments.

Virtex family

The Virtex FPGA series integrates advanced capabilities such as FIFO buffers, ECC logic, DSP blocks, PCI Express controllers, Ethernet MAC units, and high-speed serial transceivers. Beyond programmable logic, Virtex devices embed dedicated hardware components including multipliers, embedded memories, serial transceivers, and microprocessor cores. These features make them suitable for applications spanning wired and wireless communications infrastructure, sophisticated medical instrumentation, test and measurement equipment, and defense systems.

Built on a 28 nm process, the Virtex-7 family offers twice the system throughput while halving power consumption compared to Virtex-6 devices. It also doubles memory bandwidth to 1866 Mbit/s and supports over two million logic cells.

In 2011, Xilinx released samples of the Virtex-7 2000T "3D FPGA," which integrates four smaller FPGA dies on a silicon interposer. This design incorporates approximately 6.8 billion transistors and provides around 10,000 inter-die data channels—exceeding typical board-level connections by factors of ten to one hundred—effectively forming a single large FPGA device. Leveraging similar three-dimensional integration technology in 2012, Xilinx introduced the Virtex-7 H580T FPGA—a heterogeneous device combining two FPGA dies alongside an eight-channel 28 Gbit/s transceiver die within one package.

The Virtex-6 family employs a 40 nm fabrication process optimized for compute-heavy applications, achieving about 15% lower power consumption and approximately 15% higher performance than competing FPGAs built on similar nodes.

Virtex-5 variants address diverse application needs: LX and LXT models focus on logic-intensive workloads while SXT versions cater to DSP-centric tasks. This generation introduced six-input lookup tables (LUTs) to enhance handling of complex combinational logic for SoC designs, balancing improved performance with LUT density efficiency. The Virtex-5 line is manufactured using a 65 nm triple-oxide process technology.

Earlier Virtex generations—including Virtex, Virtex-II, Virtex-II Pro, and Virtex-4—are still available but are generally not recommended for incorporation into new projects.

Kintex

The Kintex-7 series serves as Xilinx's mid-tier FPGA solution, delivering the performance level of Virtex-6 at less than half the cost while reducing power consumption by 50%. This family supports high-speed serial interfaces of either 12.5 Gbit/s for performance-focused designs or a more economical 6.5 Gbit/s option, along with memory and logic capabilities tailored for large-scale 10G optical networking and LTE wireless infrastructure.

In August 2018, SK Telecom incorporated Kintex UltraScale FPGAs into their South Korean data centers to accelerate AI workloads. This integration enhanced the performance of their voice assistant, Nugu, by speeding up automatic speech recognition processes.

Xilinx broadened the Kintex portfolio in July 2020 by introducing the KU19P FPGA, which offers expanded logic resources and embedded memory to meet the needs of more demanding processing applications.

Artix

The Artix-7 lineup delivers power savings of approximately 50% and cost reductions near 35% compared to Spartan-6 devices, leveraging the unified Virtex architecture. Designed for compact and energy-efficient applications, it targets sectors including portable ultrasound equipment, digital camera lens control systems, and military avionics and communications.

Following the Spartan-7 release in 2017—which did not include high-speed transceivers—Artix-7 was positioned as the transceiver-equipped alternative within Xilinx’s cost-sensitive FPGA offerings.

Zynq

The Zynq-7000 family of SoCs is engineered for high-performance embedded markets such as video surveillance, automotive driver assistance systems, next-generation wireless technology, and industrial automation. It integrates a complete ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore fabricated on a 28 nm process, marking a shift from FPGA-centric to processor-centric design paradigms. For developers, Zynq-7000 operates like a conventional ARM SoC, enabling immediate boot-up and the ability to run diverse operating systems independently from its programmable logic.

Xilinx introduced the Zynq-7100 in 2013, incorporating digital signal processing (DSP) features to meet requirements in wireless communications, broadcasting, healthcare, and defense sectors.

To facilitate design complexity involving ARM cores, Xilinx released the Vivado Design Suite, succeeding the legacy ISE toolset. Vivado supports larger FPGA devices and includes high level synthesis (HLS) capabilities that allow engineers to generate co-processors directly from C code descriptions.

The AXIOM, recognized as the first open source hardware digital cinema camera globally, utilizes a Zynq-7000 SoC, showcasing its role in pioneering product innovation.

Spartan family

The Spartan line is aimed at applications requiring low cost and high production volumes with minimal power usage, such as displays, set-top boxes, and wireless routers.

Debuting in 2009, the Spartan-6 family is manufactured using a 45 nm process technology and targets markets including automotive electronics, wireless communication devices, flat-panel displays, and video surveillance systems.

Introduced in 2017, the Spartan-7 family employs a 28 nm process but does not feature the high-speed transceivers available on Artix-7 or Spartan-6 "LXT" variants. This makes it a budget-conscious option tailored for specific use cases.

EasyPath

EasyPath hardware matches the conventional FPGAs already utilized by clients, which facilitates quicker and more dependable manufacturing relative to rival initiatives, thereby improving the efficiency of the supply chain.

Versal

Versal is Xilinx’s 7 nm technology platform designed for heterogeneous computing applications, including datacenter acceleration, edge AI, Internet of Things (IoT), and embedded solutions.

The Everest initiative centers on the Versal Adaptive Compute Acceleration Platform (ACAP), which integrates FPGA logic with an ARM-based system on chip and multiple coprocessors interconnected through a network on chip. This architecture intends to simplify FPGA integration into demanding datacenter computational tasks.

Versal caters to a wide range of use cases such as big data processing, AI inferencing via machine learning, video transcoding, database operations, autonomous driving systems, genomics research, computational storage solutions, and network throughput enhancement.

In April 2020, Xilinx revealed its collaboration with Samsung Electronics to provide Versal processors for 5G infrastructure. Later, in July 2021, the company introduced Versal HBM featuring HBM2e memory integration to mitigate data transfer limitations and boost overall system performance.

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