Avnet Electronics Marketing Releases New Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA Evaluation and Development Kits


PHOENIX -- The Avnet Electronics Marketing operating group of Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT), announces the release of the Xilinx® Spartan®-6 LX16 FPGA Evaluation Kit and Spartan®-6 LX150T FPGA Development Kit. Both kits support the new FMC expansion standard, which enables the addition of add-on modules and easy customization when working with Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) applications.

The Spartan®-6 LX16 FPGA Evaluation Kit is based on the Spartan®-6 LX16 FPGA and showcases a system level approach to low power design for the Spartan-6 family. Designed for use as a general purpose FPGA development board, its low power design also makes the kit ideal for portable instrumentation and battery powered applications. The board is powered by a lithium-ion battery (included), a USB cable connection, or a 12 volt adaptor, and is supported by six high-efficiency portable power management integrated circuits (ICs) from Texas Instruments. The new PSoC® 3 programmable system-on-chip from Cypress adds 20-bit precision analog, system power management, USB/UART/SPI connectivity, LCD direct drive, CapSense(TM) touch sensing, and FPGA configuration support. The board provides a low pin count FMC expansion connector for adding FMC daughter cards and sells for $225. This kit will be available for shipment later this year.

The Spartan-6 LX150T FPGA Development Kit is built for video, industrial networking and control, wireless communications, PCIe® expansion, and general FPGA prototyping applications. Based on the Spartan-6 LX150T FPGA with its on-chip 2.5 Gbps transceivers, the kit provides an advanced platform for developing low-cost applications that require high-speed connectivity. The board features high-performance DDR3 memory, 10/100/1G Ethernet interface, two low pin count FMC expansion connectors and sells for $995.

Avnet's Spartan®-6 LX16 FPGA and Spartan®-6 LX150T FPGA kits complement existing development kits from Xilinx that make up the Base Platform of Xilinx's new Targeted Design Platform strategy. This strategy includes base, domain and market specific targeted design platforms that enable the creation and development of custom system solutions. The two new kits from Avnet join the base platform to provide designers a standard development platform and software package for basic evaluation and development of general FPGA designs. In the future, both companies will offer domain specific targeted technology that adds software and reference designs specific to embedded processing, DSP and connectivity. Additionally, both companies will offer market specific targeted technology that will enable the addition of hardware features via add-on modules, domain software, and reference designs, or IP to target market-specific applications.

"The Spartan-6 LX/LXT FPGA kits are a great way for designers to get started with the new Spartan-6 family from Xilinx," said Tim Barber, senior vice president of design chain business development for Avnet Electronics Marketing. "Avnet has also aligned with other key suppliers to help incorporate additional technologies and proven reference designs that engineers need to quickly develop a complete solution."
The Spartan®-6 LX16 FPGA Evaluation Kit and Spartan®-6 LX150T FPGA Development Kit will be featured during X-fest 2009 - Avnet and Xilinx's 37-city global technical seminar series beginning. X-fest offers practical, how-to training for FPGA, DSP and embedded systems designers in locations throughout Asia, Europe, Japan and North America from October 6, 2009 through February 2010. For complete information, about X-fest 2009, including full course descriptions, locations and registration information, please visit: www.em.avnet.com/xfest.

Follow us on Twitter at: twitter.com/avnetxfest. Contribute to our technical forums at: community.em.avnet.com. View product and company videos at: www.avnetondemand.com/components/channel/7/.

About Avnet Electronics Marketing

Avnet Electronics Marketing is an operating group of Phoenix-based Avnet, Inc. that serves electronic original equipment manufacturers (EOEMs) and electronic manufacturing services (EMS) providers in more than 70 countries, distributing electronic components from leading manufacturers and providing associated design-chain and supply-chain services. The group's Web site is located at www.em.avnet.com.

About Avnet

Avnet, Inc. (NYSE:AVT), a Fortune 500 company, is one of the largest distributors of electronic components, computer products and embedded technology in the world. Avnet accelerates its partners' success by connecting the world's leading technology suppliers with a broad base of more than 100,000 customers and providing cost-effective, value-added services and solutions. For the fiscal year ended June 27, 2009, Avnet generated revenue of $16.23 billion. For more information, visit www.avnet.com.

All Topics