Xilinx, Ateme Demonstrate New Real-Time MPEG-4 Video Encoder In A Single FPGA

Virtex-4 FPGAs provide high performance and flexibility required in H.264/AVC Main Profile encoding 

LAS VEGAS, April 24 ,2005 - Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX), the world’s leading programmable logic supplier, and ATEME, a world-leading provider of advanced video compression technology, will demonstrate a new H.264/AVC real-time Standard Definition at Main Profile video encoder at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Conference, April 24-27, 2006 in Las Vegas. The MPEG-4 encoder leverages the superior performance of the Xilinx Virtex™-4 family of FPGAs and ATEME’s vast experience in video encoding to enable delivery of video content with industry-leading quality.

The licensable intellectual property (IP) solution developed by ATEME, implemented on a single Virtex-4 FPGA is fully compliant with the MPEG-4 Part 10 (ISO/IEC 14496-10) standard. This provides a highly integrated, cost-effective solution that can be utilized in a wide variety of professional video-based applications.

“By leveraging the high performance DSP blocks in Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGAs, our encoder performs real-time encoding without sacrificing quality ,” said Marc Guillaumet, marketing director at ATEME. “ We are proud to offer this new hardware solution with Xilinx, expanding upon the rapid market adoption of our AVC libraries. This collaboration further strengthens the relationship between ATEME and Xilinx, and we anticipate great demand for our joint solutions, including the port of our high definition H.264 on Virtex 4 FPGAs."

High Performance, High Quality Solution
H.264/AVC is intended to provide the utmost in video quality at less than half the bit rate of previous MPEG-2 standard. The solution targets the applications of all previous codecs with support for low and high bit rates and resolutions up to HDTV, as well as a wide variety of new generation networks and systems such as IPTV.

"Virtex-4 FPGAs deliver unrivalled processing performance for leading broadcast video solutions such as ATEME’s H.264/AVC video encoder, ” said Mark Hoopes, senior manager of Broadcast and Consumer Ve rtical Marketing at Xilinx. “By collaborating with ATEME and aligning our roadmaps on High Definition H.264, and beyond, we are well-positioned to address the complex issues designers face with broadcast encoding applications. Providing system-level implementations that include a comprehensive suite of codec IP with video and audio reference designs to jump start development is a key element of our strategy.”

The H.264 encoder solution can be viewed at the Xilinx NAB booth #C10515 at the Las Vegas Convention Centre, Central Hall, along with a wide range of new and improved solutions for the broadcast industry. In order to learn more about Xilinx broadcast solutions, visit www.xilinx.com/broadcast.

About Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGAs
Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGAs deliver more options, higher performance and lower power than any other FPGA family available today. With more than 100 technical innovations, the Virtex-4 family consists of 17 devices and three domain-optimized platforms; Virtex-4 LX FPGAs optimized for logic-intensive designs, Virtex-4 FX FPGAs optimized for high-speed serial connectivity and embedded processing, and Virtex-4 SX FPGAs optimized for high-performance signal processing. Devices are shipping now. For more information on the Virtex-4 product family, visit www.xilinx.com/virtex4.

About ATEME
ATEME (www.ateme.com) is a world-leading provider of Advanced Video Compression technology. Its Intellectual Property is available through IP cores for FPGA, DSP and PC libraries, development platforms, production-ready designs and custom services: A/V consulting, H/W design, IP customization, S/W integration. The superior quality and interoperability of its Codecs have been widely recognized by independent studies and customers benchmarks and make ATEME the choice supplier of technology for broadcast & broadband, video security and streaming media appliances.

About Xilinx
Xilinx is the worldwide leader in complete programmable logic solutions. For more information, visit www.xilinx.com.