James V. Barnett II is an American

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

and co-founder of the

FPGA A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturinghence the term '' field-programmable''. The FPGA configuration is generally specified using a hardware de ...

developer

Xilinx Xilinx, Inc. ( ) was an American technology and semiconductor company that primarily supplied programmable logic devices. The company was known for inventing the first commercially viable field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and creating the fi ...

Education

Barnett earned a BS degree in Ceramic Engineering from the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

in 1967. His early career was spent at Fairchild Semiconductor, Raytheon Semiconductor, American Microsystems, Ness Time, and Zilog Semiconductor.

Founding of Xilinx

Barnett co-founded Xilinx with

Ross Freeman Ross or ROSS may refer to: People * Clan Ross, a Highland Scottish clan * Ross (name), including a list of people with the surname or given name Ross, as well as the meaning * Earl of Ross, a peerage of Scotland Places * RoSS, the Republic of Sout ...

and

Bernard Vonderschmitt Bernard Valentine Vonderschmitt (October 14, 1923 – June 9, 2004) was an electrical engineer, most noted as a co-founder of leading FPGA producer Xilinx. Biography He was born on October 14, 1923 in Jasper, Indiana. Vonderschmitt graduated wit ...

in 1984. The three individuals had been working together at Zilog where Freeman wished to develop chips that were blank and users could program the logic themselves and envisioned the field-programmable gate array. Zilog executives were not interested in developing this technology, which prompted the three Zilog engineers to leave the company and pursue the concept independently. They raised $4.25 million in venture capital from Hambrecht & Quist and Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, among others, to form Xilinx, Inc., in 1984.

Legacy

Barnett was inducted into the University of Illinois College of Engineering Hall of Fame in 2012University of Illinois College of Engineering Hall of Fame. �

�� Retrieved January 15, 2009.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barnett, James V. II Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 20th-century American engineers 21st-century American engineers Grainger College of Engineering alumni American technology company founders