Xilinx Appoints New Vice President & General Manager, Processing Solutions Group

-- Xilinx, Inc. (Nasdaq: XLNX) today announced that Vincent "Vin" Ratford, 56, has been promoted to vice president and general manager of the processing solutions group (PSG) from his current position as vice president of marketing, business development and silicon architecture for PSG.

Ratford assumes responsibility for the company's digital signal processing (DSP) and embedded processing solutions [silicon, intellectual property (IP), software tools and design methodologies], and connectivity solutions (physical layer and protocols) that allow a broader base of designers to leverage the high performance-price advantages of Xilinx field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). He is also responsible for strategic alliances with industry leaders to further enhance and strengthen the company's product portfolio.

Ratford succeeds Omid Tahernia, 47, who departed Xilinx to become chief executive officer at high technology start-up Tilera (Santa Clara, CA.). Since 2004, Xilinx has successfully expanded into the DSP and embedded market segments, building a global organization and delivering next-generation solutions targeted at wireless, video and imaging, aerospace and defense, and industrial, scientific and medical applications.

"Processing solutions are core to the Xilinx total solutions strategy and key to our growth and expansion into new markets over the next five years," said Wim Roelandts, chairman, president and CEO of Xilinx. "Thanks to the hard work and dedication of the team, our DSP and embedded-generated revenue has doubled over the past three years. I'm confident in Vin's ability to lead the organization, building upon a very strong organizational foundation to take our business to the next level and accelerating our growth in the coming years."

"It's an honor to assume responsibility for working with such a stellar organization with tremendous engineering talent," said Ratford. "I'm proud of the milestone achievements we've made to date and look forward to delivering breakthrough technology enhancements that will further improve our customers' out-of-the-box experience with Xilinx DSP, embedded and connectivity solutions."

Ratford brings more than 30 years of management experience at a variety of high technology companies to his new position at the helm of the Xilinx processing solutions group organization. Prior to joining Xilinx, Ratford served as president and CEO of AccelChip, the leading provider of MATLAB(R) synthesis software tools for building DSP systems acquired by Xilinx in January 2006, and he was instrumental in the successful integration of AccelChip. Before that, he was chief operating officer of Microtech (the embedded software division of Mentor Graphics) and vice president of sales and marketing at Virage Logic. Ratford has a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Northeastern University.

About Xilinx

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