The Vertex-7 2000T FPGA device, which is the first to use 2.5-D IC stack silicon interconnect technology and provides 6.8 billion transistors—twice that of competitor devices—outperforming Moore's Law.

Xilinx Korea (Country Manager Heung-sik Ahn) October 26, 2011 – Xilinx announced the first Virtex®-7 2000T FPGA, the world's largest capacity programmable logic device, utilizing 6.8 billion transistors for system integration, ASIC replacement, and ASIC prototyping and emulation, and providing access to 2 million logic cells equivalent to an unprecedented 20 million ASIC gates. This product is made possible by Xilinx's stacked silicon interconnect technology, and the first 2.5D IC stacking application offers customers double the capacity compared to competitors and delivers performance exceeding what Moore's Law provides in monolithic 28-nanometer FPGAs. Customers can use Xilinx’s Virtex-7 2000T FPGA instead of high-capacity ASICs to create integrated systems that increase system bandwidth and reduce power consumption by eliminating I/O interconnects, while using a similar level of total cost in one-third of the time, and accelerate the prototyping and emulation of modern ASIC systems.

Victor Peng, Senior Vice President of Programmable Platform Development at Xilinx, stated, “The Virtex-7 2000T FPGA is writing a new history of Xilinx’s innovation and industry collaboration,” adding, “What is important to customers is that stacked silicon interconnect technology provides transistor capacity that is impossible with FPGAs of other processes, at the very least.” “They can immediately add new features to existing designs by abandoning ASICs, build and prototype system emulators using up to FPGAs at least a year ahead of next-generation products, or reduce costs by consolidating three or five FPGA solutions into a single FPGA,” he said.

Historically, it has been nearly impossible for customers to use high-capacity devices that make up FPGA product families. This is because it takes a significant amount of time to improve yield per wafer to enable the efficient use of high-capacity devices in new semiconductor processes. Xilinx’s Stacked Silicon Interconnect technology has solved the challenges of defect-free mass production and high-capacity monolithic die production by manufacturing the world’s largest-capacity programmable logic device using four separate FPGA dies connected on a passive silicon interposer.

"ARM® is pleased to partner with Xilinx to use the best-in-class Virtex-7 2000T device in our verification infrastructure," said Jogn Goodenough, Vice President of Design Technology and Automation at ARM®. "While the new device is not yet a target, it significantly enhances capacity to make it easier to perform full system verification and validation for next-generation processors by reinforcing the flexible emulation architecture."

The Virtex-7 2000T device provides equipment manufacturers with an integrated platform, enabling them to address the challenge of reducing power consumption while increasing performance and capacity. By eliminating I/O interfaces between multiple ICs on the circuit board, the overall power consumption of the system can be significantly reduced. The fewer IC devices required on the circuit board, the lower the Bill of Materials (BoM) and test/development cycle costs for customers. Because the dies are placed side-by-side on a silicon interposer, this technology resolves the power and stability issues that arise from stacking multiple dies. This interposer includes more than 10,000 high-speed interconnects between each die to enable high-performance integration required for various applications.

The Virtex-7 2000T FPGA provides customers with the capacity, performance, and power that can only be experienced in high-capacity ASICs, along with the benefits of reprogramming capabilities. In a market environment where the number of systems continues to increase and is unfavorable to ASIC development, the Virtex-7 2000T FPGA presents a unique, scalable alternative to allay concerns about overly rapid growth and the non-reoccurring engineering (NRE) costs of over $50 million for 28nm custom ICs.
All of Xilinx's 28nm devices (ARTIX™-7, KINTEX™-7, Virtex®-7 FPGA, Zynq™-7000 EPP) share a unified architecture that supports design and IP reuse within the product family. These products are all built on TSMC's 28nm HPL (low power via HKMG) process to provide FPGAs that consume 50 percent less static power compared to competitor products. As low static power becomes a critical factor as device capacity increases, 28nm HPL is a key factor enabling lower power consumption in Virtex-7 2000T devices than in designs implemented across multiple FPGAs.

More detailed information
The first engineering samples of the Virtex-7 V2000T FPGA are now available. Customers can begin designing by leveraging the price, performance, and low power consumption benefits offered by the 7 Series FPGAs. More detailed information can be found at www.xilinx.com/virtex7 through a demo of the first Virtex-7 2000T device, which utilizes over 70 percent of resources in some power for designs implemented across multiple FPGAs.