May 15, 2006 -- Mentor Graphics Corp. today announced that its suite of advanced synthesis products supports the newly introduced Virtex-5 field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) from Xilinx, Inc. The companies have collaborated over the past year to ensure support for the full range of Virtex-5 LX devices with the upcoming releases of the Xilinx ISE design suite and Mentor Precision Synthesis software.

The new Xilinx Virtex-5 family of FPGAs, manufactured on a 65-nm process and featuring the new ultra-fast ExpressFabric technology with new 6LUT architecture, provides major density and performance improvements. "With the higher levels of system integration and capabilities of Virtex-5 FPGAs, the need for advanced synthesis tool capabilities, such as incremental timing analysis, debug and leading-edge language support, is essential," said Simon Bloch, General Manager, Mentor Graphics Design Creation and Synthesis Division. "Precision Synthesis, with its advanced functionality, is the logical choice for customers wanting to take full advantage of Virtex-5 speed and density."

Both companies started collaboration in June 2005 on support for Virtex-5 advanced architectural features in Mentor Graphics family of synthesis tools. "As a broad-line EDA supplier supporting FPGA synthesis, Mentor Graphics is a crucial element of the Xilinx partner ecosystem," said Sandeep Vij, Vice President of Worldwide Marketing for Xilinx. "Their early access support for our new Virtex-5 family is key to ensuring that our mutual customers have both the tools and high-performance system platforms needed to design their next-generation products."

The Precision Synthesis tool suite integrates logical and physical synthesis techniques to define a new approach to complex FPGA design. Built on a unified data model, it allows designers to cross-probe between multiple views, giving users added control when analyzing designs. This design analysis capability is coupled to an intuitive debug environment. To further enhance engineering productivity, Precision Synthesis includes an incremental timing analysis tool, allowing companies to solve next-generation FPGA implementation and timing challenges, resulting in shorter design cycles and significantly higher performance.

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