Avnet, Xilinx and Texas Instruments Release Avnet Spartan-3A DSP FPGA / DaVinci Development Platform

—Avnet Electronics Marketing, an operating group of Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT), Xilinx® and Texas Instruments (TI) announce the release of the Avnet Spartan®-3A DSP FPGA / DaVinci Development Platform. The platform is currently available to customers worldwide for $795.

The Avnet Spartan-3A DSP FPGA / DaVinci Development Platform provides a complete engineering platform for evaluating and integrating the Xilinx Spartan 3A-DSP FPGA and TI digital media processor based on DaVinciâ„¢ technology. The new platform offers the XC3SD1800ADSP FPGA and TMS320DM6437, a DSP-only digital media processor based on DaVinci technology, in an optimized configuration, with both high-speed data and low-speed control interfaces between the two devices. The board provides many of the necessary peripheral and interface functions, and includes a standard, full EXP expansion slot for the addition of application specific add-on modules. The platform is ideal for any application where an FPGA and DSP co-exist and is targeted at surveillance, automotive and machine vision video applications.

“The combined features and functionality of the Spartan-3A DSP FPGA and the DM6437 DSP processor on a single baseboard offer many benefits for video processing applications,” said Jim Beneke, vice president of global technical marketing for Avnet Electronics Marketing. “Designers can leverage the hardware parallelism of the FPGA with the integration and software elegance of the DSP. The two together offer a unique cost-performance advantage.”

The Avnet Spartan®-3A DSP DaVinciâ„¢ Development Kit offers an integrated platform combining TI DaVinci technology with Xilinx FPGAs for design teams creating compute-intensive products in industrial imaging, video security, automotive and machine vision. “We are pleased to collaborate on this effort to enable the digital video and imaging markets. This board delivers on the goals of DaVinci technology – integrated processors, software, development tools and support designed to simplify digital video and imaging product development,” said Thomas Brooks, worldwide channel development marketing manager for TI. “This board will speed time to market, and the low price point will ensure that developers can access this platform with a very small investment.”

“The Avnet Spartan-3A DSP FPGA DaVinci Development Platform, in combination with supported development flows from The Mathworks™, TI and Xilinx, will make it easy to evaluate system partitioning scenarios between the DSP processor and FPGA,” said Tom Hill, senior manager of DSP Marketing for Xilinx, Inc. “This will enable customers to quickly optimize their video systems using a combination of TI and Xilinx technologies.”

For more information and to purchase, please visit: www.em.avnet.com/spartan3a-davinci.

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. 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 28, 2008, Avnet generated revenue of $17.95 billion. For more information, visit www.avnet.com.