Virtex is the flagship family of

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 ...

products developed by

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 ...

, a part of

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...

. Other current product lines include Kintex (mid-range) and Artix (low-cost), each including configurations and models optimized for different applications.DSP-FPGA.com
Xilinx FPGA Products
” April 2010. Retrieved June 10, 2010. In addition, Xilinx offers the Spartan low-cost series, which continues to be updated and is nearing production utilizing the same underlying architecture and

process node Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to manufacture semiconductor devices, typically integrated circuit (IC) chips such as modern computer processors, microcontrollers, and memory chips such as NAND flash and DRAM that are pres ...

as the larger 7-series devices. Virtex FPGAs are typically programmed in

hardware description language In computer engineering, a hardware description language (HDL) is a specialized computer language used to describe the structure and behavior of electronic circuits, and most commonly, digital logic circuits. A hardware description language e ...

s such as

VHDL The VHSIC Hardware Description Language (VHDL) is a hardware description language (HDL) that can model the behavior and structure of digital systems at multiple levels of abstraction, ranging from the system level down to that of logic gates ...

Verilog Verilog, standardized as IEEE 1364, is a hardware description language (HDL) used to model electronic systems. It is most commonly used in the design and verification of digital circuits at the register-transfer level of abstraction. It is also ...

, using the

Xilinx ISE Xilinx ISE 100728 xilinx.com (Integrated Synthesis Environment)Vivado Design Suite computer software.Brian Bailey, EE Times.
Second generation for FPGA software
" Apr 25, 2012. Retrieved Dec 21, 2012. Xilinx FPGA products have been recognized by EE Times, EDN and others for innovation and market impact.EE Times, �
EE Times 2010 ACE Award for Design Innovation
.” April 27, 2010. Retrieved June 17, 2010.EDN, �
EDN Hot 100 Products of 2007: Digital, Memory and Programmable ICs
.” December 14, 2007. Retrieved June 17, 2010.EDN, �
The Hot 100 Electronic Products of 2009
.” December 15, 2009. Retrieved June 15, 2010.

Architecture

The Virtex series of FPGAs are based on Configurable Logic Blocks (CLBs), where each CLB is equivalent to multiple ASIC gates.Field Programmable Logic and Applications
Springer Science & Business Media, 21-Aug-2002Handbook of Signal Processing Systems - Volume 2
Springer Science & Business Media, 20-Jun-2013 Each CLB is composed of multiple ''slices'', that differ in construction between Virtex families. Virtex FPGAs include an I/O Block for controlling input/output pins on the Virtex chip, that support a variety of signalling standards.Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems
Springer Science & Business Media, 02-Sep-2003 All pins default to "input" mode (high impedance). I/O pins are grouped into I/O Banks, where each Bank can support a different voltage. In addition to configurable FPGA logic, Virtex FPGAs include fixed-function hardware for multipliers, memories, microprocessor cores, FIFO and ECC logic, DSP blocks,

PCI Express PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X and AGP bus standards. It is the common ...

controllers, Ethernet MAC blocks, and high-speed serial transceivers.Ron Wilson, EDN.
Xilinx FPGA introductions hint at new realities
." February 2, 2009 Retrieved June 10, 2010.Design & Reuse.

" February 2, 2009. Retrieved June 10, 2010. Some Virtex family members (such as the Virtex-5QX) are available in radiation-hardened packages, for outer-space applications.

Families

Virtex-E

The Virtex-E family was introduced in September 1999 on a 180 nm process technology. Virtex-E includes a two million system gate device and supports twice the system-gate density and has a 50 percent higher I/O performance than the original Virtex FPGAs.

Virtex-II

Xilinx introduced Virtex-II family in January 2001 on 150 nm process technology, and Virtex-II Pro family in March 2002 on 90 nm process technology. The Virtex-II and Virtex-II Pro families are considered legacy devices, and are not recommended for use in new designs, although they are still produced by Xilinx for existing designs.

Virtex-4

The Virtex-4 family are considered legacy devices, and are not recommended for use in new designs, although they are still produced by Xilinx for existing designs. Virtex-4 family was introduced in June 2004 on 90 nm process technology. Virtex-4 FPGAs have been used for the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) at the

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...

European laboratory on the French-

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internation ...

border to map and disentangle the trajectories of thousands of

subatomic particles In physical sciences, a subatomic particle is a particle that composes an atom. According to the Standard Model of particle physics, a subatomic particle can be either a composite particle, which is composed of other particles (for example, a prot ...

Virtex-5

The Virtex-5 family was introduced in May 2006 on 65 nm process technology. The Virtex-5 LX and the LXT are intended for logic-intensive applications, and the Virtex-5 SXT is for DSP applications. With the Virtex-5, Xilinx changed the logic fabric from four-input LUTs to six-input LUTs. With the increasing complexity of combinational logic functions required by SoC designs, the percentage of combinational paths requiring multiple four-input LUTs had become a performance and routing bottleneck. The new six-input LUT represented a tradeoff between better handling of increasingly complex combinational functions, at the expense of a reduction in the absolute number of LUTs per device. The Virtex-5 series is a 65 nm design fabricated in 1.0 V, triple-oxide process technology.National Instruments.
Advantages of the Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA
" June 17, 2009. Retrieved June 29, 2010.

Virtex-6

The Virtex-6 family was introduced in February 2009 on a 40 nm process technology for compute-intensive electronic systems, and the company claims it consumes 15 percent less power and has 15 percent improved performance over competing 40 nm FPGAs.

Virtex-7

The Virtex-7 family was introduced in June 2010 on a 28 nm process technology, and is reported to deliver a two-fold system performance improvement at 50 percent lower power compared to previous generation Virtex-6 devices. In addition, Virtex-7 doubles the memory bandwidth compared to previous generation Virtex FPGAs with 1866 Mbit/s memory interfacing performance and over two million logic cells.EE Times. �
Xilinx Announces the Spartan-7 FPGA Family
” Nov 19, 2015. Retrieved February 10, 2015.Kevin Morris, FPGA Journal. �
Veni! Vidi! Virtex! (and Kintex and Artix Too)
.” June 21, 2010. Retrieved September 23, 2010.

Virtex-7 (3D)

In 2011, Xilinx began shipping sample quantities of the Virtex-7 2000T FPGA, which combines four smaller FPGAs into a single package by placing them on a special silicon interconnection pad (called an interposer) to deliver 6.8 billion transistors in a single large chip. The interposer provides 10,000 data pathways between the individual FPGAs – roughly 10 to 100 times more than would usually be available on a board – to create a single FPGA.Don Clark, The Wall Street Journal.
Xilinx Says Four Chips Act Like One Giant
" October 25, 2011. Retrieved November 18, 2011.Clive Maxfield, EETimes.
Xilinx tips world’s highest capacity FPGA
" October 25, 2011. Retrieved November 18, 2011.David Manners, Electronics Weekly.

" October 25, 2011. Retrieved November 18, 2011. In 2012, using the same 3D technology, Xilinx introduced initial shipments of their Virtex-7 H580T FPGA, a heterogeneous device, so called because it comprises two FPGA dies and one 8-channel 28Gbit/s transceiver die in the same package.Electronic Product News.

" May 15, 2012. Retrieved June 12, 2012. As Xilinx introduced new high capacity 3D FPGAs, including Virtex-7 2000T and Virtex-7 H580T products, these devices began to outpace the capacity of Xilinx’s design software, which led the company to completely redesign its tool set. The result was the introduction of the Vivado Design Suite, which reduces the time needed for programmable logic and I/O design, and speeds systems integration and implementation compared to the previous software.EDN.
The Vivado Design Suite accelerates programmable systems integration and implementation by up to 4X
" Jun 15, 2012. Retrieved Jan 3, 2013.

Virtex UltraScale

The Virtex UltraScale family was introduced in May, 2014 on a 20 nm process technology.http://forums.xilinx.com/t5/Xcell-Daily-Blog/Xilinx-ships-first-20nm-Virtex-UltraScale-FPGA-Why-this-matters/ba-p/458488 The UltraScale is a "3D FPGA" that contains up to 4.4M logic cells, and uses up to 45% lower power vs. previous generations, and up to 50% lower BOM cost.

Virtex UltraScale+

The Virtex UltraScale+ family was introduced in January 2016 on a 16 nm process technology.

SoC

Ic-photo-Xilinx--XC2VP30-FFG896CGB0609--(Vertex-II Pro--PowerPC-CPU)

The Virtex-II Pro, Virtex-4, Virtex-5, and Virtex-6 FPGA families, which include up to two embedded IBM

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

cores, are targeted to the needs of

system-on-chip A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memory ...

(SoC) designers.Virtex-4 Family Overview
/ref>Richard Wilson, ElectronicsWeekly.com,

" February 2, 2009. Retrieved on February 2, 2009.

References

Alternative FPGA manufacturers

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

(former

Altera Altera Corporation was a manufacturer of programmable logic devices (PLDs) headquartered in San Jose, California. It was founded in 1983 and acquired by Intel in 2015. The main product lines from Altera were the flagship Stratix series, mid-rang ...

) *

Lattice Semiconductor Lattice Semiconductor Corporation is an American semiconductor company specializing in the design and manufacturing of low power, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Headquartered in the Silicon Forest area of Hillsboro, Oregon, the company ...

{{Programmable Logic Reconfigurable computing Field-programmable gate arrays AMD products