NEWS

Wind River and Xilinx Announce Strategic Alliance to Deliver Development Tools for Xilinx FPGAs

San Jose and Alameda, Calif., January 28, 2002 - Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX), the leader in complete programmable logic solutions, and Wind River Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: WIND), the market leader in embedded software, today announced a multi-year alliance and original equipment manufacturing (OEM) development tools agreement whereby Xilinx will sell a version of Wind River s development tools specifically designed for its next generation Virtex-II Platform FPGA for the PowerPC 405 processor. The agreement is part of Wind River and Xilinx s strategy to enable rapid adoption and optimization of programmable platforms, and marks the first time Wind River has entered into an OEM agreement with a FPGA silicon vendor.

The new tool chain will enable hardware developers migrating to the Xilinx Virtex-II Platform FPGA to rapidly configure and program both the CPU core and Virtex-II Platform FPGA device. With access to familiar, industry-standard development tools from Wind River, system designers will benefit from a significantly reduced learning curve when developing programmable platforms in a wide variety of market segments.

"The semiconductor industry is entering a new era in electronic design signified by accelerated technology advances, constantly changing requirements, fierce competition, and more than ever, uncertain commercial success of new electronic equipment. Given these dynamics coupled with system architects interest in reducing design risk and time-to-market, we are seeing a major industry shift towards completely programmable platforms," said Wim Roelandts, president and CEO at Xilinx. "Partnering with Wind River to deliver established software tools will accelerate this shift by allowing a large base of embedded design engineers to fully exploit next generation programmable hardware/software system technology."

"Given our common visions of the co-processing and re-configurable computing landscapes, we re delighted to align with the industry leader in this exciting field of emerging technology," said John Fogelin, chief technology officer and vice president of Wind River s Platforms business unit. "Our alliance with Xilinx will give FPGA developers the latest industry-standard tools to rapidly bring their applications to market and represents a key step toward optimizing the benefits of programmable platforms while simplifying the development process."

Wind River will provide a specific tool chain for distribution by Xilinx that will include versions of Wind River s Diab C/C++"! compiler suite, SingleStep with Vision software debugger and visionPROBE II on-chip hardware-assisted debugger. Wind River and Xilinx will also continue to collaborate on a complete runtime solution for embedded FPGA developers that will include closer integration of Wind River s industry leading VxWorks real-time operating system (RTOS) with Xilinx FPGA devices. This work will build upon Wind River's single board computer 405GP co-processing development platform (see related release, Wind River Delivers Co-Processing Development Platform for Rapid Bring-Up of Re-Configurable Computing Applications, Dec. 10, 2001) as well as the Xilinx PAVE application programming interface (API) for the VxWorks RTOS.

These tools are ideal for hardware designers who want to move sequential parts of their code onto a processor core as well as low-level driver development. FPGA designers that are exposed to the unfamiliar world of CPU development are now empowered to perform CPU development with relative ease, and can start making use of the embedded CPU immediately.

For software developers working with the Virtex-II Platform FPGA, Wind River will continue to offer a complete set of development tools to compliment the tools distributed by Xilinx. These tools are well suited for developers working with larger amounts of code who require advanced features for custom hardware bring-up, firmware development and application software development.

Product Availability
Xilinx will supply the Wind River tools in late Q1 2002. The tools will be available in a development kit package or can be purchased separately. The development kit offered by Xilinx will include Wind River s compiler, debugger, and on-chip hardware debug products with a reference/evaluation board, reference designs, application software examples, software drivers and documentation geared toward the development of FPGA designs. For developers requiring advanced features for custom hardware bring-up, firmware development and application software development, an upgrade will be available from Wind River.

Advantages of Programmable Platform
Today s digital designers need highly-optimized, upgradeable ICs without the extreme up front cost and risk of a custom circuit. The Xilinx Platform FPGA initiative describes a setting in which the embedded software designer has earlier access to the target hardware than exists today. Early target hardware combined with the Wind River development tools, enables the designer to develop and optimize the technology in parallel with the hardware, which improves time to market with increased performance, functionality and flexibility. The blending of hardware, firmware, application software and real-time operating systems into a platform-based approach removes many of the barriers that exist in the embedded world today.

About Wind River
Wind River is a worldwide leader in embedded software. Wind River provides software development tools, real-time operating systems, and advanced connectivity for use in products throughout the Internet, telecommunications and data communications, digital imaging, digital consumer electronics, networking, medical, computer peripherals, automotive, industrial automation and control, and aerospace/defense markets. Wind River is how smart things think. Founded in 1983, Wind River is headquartered in Alameda, California, with operations worldwide.

Wind River Systems and the Wind River Systems logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Wind River Systems, Inc. All other names mentioned are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective companies.

Contact Information
Jessica Miller
Global Corporate Communications