HOUSTON, TX (January, 19, 2010) – Responding to the demand for more intuitive, easy-to-use software throughout every design stage, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) today announced controlSUITE software for its TMS320C2000™ microcontrollers (MCUs) that enable real-time control applications. Unlike traditional MCU offerings, controlSUITE software delivers the content and content management necessary to simplify evaluation, application adaptation, debug, test and reuse. Going beyond the simple demonstrations common to free software portfolios, controlSUITE software includes libraries and examples that are full, open source projects, serving as true development systems for applications such as motor control. Additionally, a new installer eliminates frustrations related to versioning and dependencies and gives developers access to the complete software offering in a centralized location. For more information, please visit www.ti.com/controlsuite-pr.

Key features and benefits of controlSUITE software

• Software content takes user through each design stage:
  • Evaluation: Fundamental building blocks inside an intuitive system framework simplify device start-up, configuration, tasking, and peripheral configuration, all within the Code Composer Studio™ integrated development environment that works across multiple TI embedded processor platforms
  • Application development: Modular application level libraries and unique tools were built into real-world systems and are supported with open source hardware examples to allow developers to easily port content to varying applications with dramatically greater success
  • Proliferation: Developers can reuse content across product lines and projects, fully leveraging the scalable C2000 MCU platform to meet varying price, performance and peripheral requirements
• Device drivers, APIs, utilities, as well as math, signal processing and application libraries allow developers to focus on differentiation  
• Single controlSUITE portal allows developers to easily manage available software, collateral and support
• New installer allows developers to select only the software components they require and gives the option for update notifications or automatic updates to eliminate version compatibility issues
• Incremental build approach to motor control example systems allows developers to verify each section of their application one step at a time to greatly simplify debug

New High Voltage Motor Control and PFC Developer’s Kit

TI’s new High Voltage Motor Control and PFC Developer’s Kit is the first to be based on controlSUITE software. The kit offers developers an open source hardware and software platform to develop advanced motor control systems with digital power factor correction (PFC) using TI’s C2000 Piccolo™ MCUs. Leveraging TI’s Piccolo F28035 controlCARD, the PFC stage on the kit provides up to 750 W of power to the motor driver stage, which can output 1.5 KW of power. The controlSUITE software included with the kit provides step-by-step documentation for closed loop PFC software and detailed examples and labs on controlling brushless DC (trapezoidal and sinusoidal drive), AC Induction or permanent magnet synchronous motors (Field Oriented Control) in both sensored and sensorless configurations.

Pricing and availability

controlSUITE software is free and can be immediately accessed at www.ti.com/cs_controlsuite-pr. Initially, application libraries focus on motor control, but additional applications, such as digital power, power line modem, and LED lighting will be added throughout the year. The High Voltage Digital Motor Control & PFC Reference Design Kit (TMDSHVMTRPFCKIT) is priced at $599 immediately available for order at www.ti.com/cs_hvmckit-estore-pr. 

TI’s broad portfolio of MCUs and software

From general purpose, ultra-low power MSP430™ MCUs, to Stellaris® Cortex™-M3 MCUs and high performance, real-time control TMS320C2000™ MCUs, TI offers the broadest range of microcontroller solutions. Designers can accelerate time to market by tapping into TI’s complete software and hardware tools, extensive third-party offerings and technical support.

Find out more about TI’s controlSUITE software by visiting the links below:

• controlSUITE software: www.ti.com/cs_controlsuite-pr
• High Voltage Digital Motor Control Kit tool folder: www.ti.com/cs_hvmckit-tf-pr
• Video overview of controlSUITE: www.ti.com/cs_controlsuitevideo-pr
• Digital motor control methodology whitepaper: www.ti.com/cs_mc_whitepaper-pr
• TI’s microcontroller portfolio: www.ti.com/cs_microcontroller-pr
• TI estore: www.ti.com/cs_hvmckit-estore-pr
• C2000 motor control solutions: www.ti.com/cs_C2000dmc-pr

About Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) helps customers solve problems and develop new electronics that make the world smarter, healthier, safer, greener and more fun.  A global semiconductor company, TI innovates through design, sales and manufacturing operations in more than 30 countries.  For more information, go to www.ti.com.

HSINCHU, Taiwan, and SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 20 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ — UMC (NYSE:UMC) , a leading global semiconductor foundry, and Xilinx Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX) today announced they have fully qualified the Virtex®-6 FPGA family on the foundry’s high- performance 40nm logic process. The qualification is the result of the close work between engineering teams from both companies to further enhance yield, reliability and cycle time. The full qualification of the Virtex-6 family signifies the transition to 40nm volume production following UMC’s first shipments of the devices in March 2009.

“We highly value the ongoing execution of our long time manufacturing partner UMC,” said Xilinx CEO Moshe Gavrielov. “We have collaborated together to deliver several generations of industry leading FPGA families.”

“This 40nm achievement follows a long history of successful product family launches with Xilinx,” said UMC CEO Dr. Shih-Wei Sun. “Today’s production readiness of the 40nm Virtex-6 family underscores our ongoing commitment to Xilinx and our long-term partnership.”

Built using third-generation Xilinx ASMBL™ architecture, the Virtex-6 FPGA family delivers 15% higher performance and 15% lower power consumption compared to competitive 40nm FPGA offerings. The devices operate on a 1.0v core voltage with an available 0.9v low-power option and are supported by a new generation of development tools delivered by ISE® Design Suite 11 and a vast library of IP already available for the market leading 65-nm Virtex-5 FPGA family to ensure productive development and design migration.

“Reaching the production milestone means we have stable and predictable yields that allow us to meet our growing customer demands reliably,” said Vincent Tong, Xilinx Senior Vice President, New Product Introductions and Worldwide Quality. “This would not be possible without the joint collaboration with UMC where we used Xilinx’s next generation FPGA diagnostic tools along with UMC’s rapid info-turn yield learning vehicles to achieve significant yield and quality improvement of 40nm.”

Early engagement, design for manufacturing and an effective test vehicle process are also contributing to the successful roll-out of the Virtex-6 family. By building on what they learned from working together closely on previous generations, the Xilinx and UMC engineering teams were able to beat the tape-out to production duration of the Virtex-5 family by a quarter, Tong noted.

“The successful qualification of Virtex-6 is the result of the close teamwork between Xilinx and UMC engineers to address the challenges of 40nm high performance technology,” said S.C. Chien, Vice President of Advanced Technology Development at UMC. “UMC dedicated significant engineering talent and resources in our joint effort with Xilinx, such as customizing device specifications to their product specifications, delivering DFM for stable yield, fast info-turn vehicle to enhance quality, and quick diagnosis methodology. We are excited to see that our teamwork has paid off with today’s milestone.”

UMC’s independently developed 45/40nm logic process utilizes sophisticated immersion lithography for its 12 critical layers and incorporates the latest technology advancements such as ultra-shallow junction, embedded silicon- germanium and mobility enhancement techniques, and ultra low-k dielectrics. Currently, several customers have 45/40nm products being manufactured at UMC, with thousands of wafers having already been shipped.

Virtex-6 FPGAs are the programmable silicon foundation for Targeted Design Platforms that deliver integrated software and hardware components to enable designers to focus on innovation as soon as their development cycle begins. The Virtex-6 FPGA family comprises three domain-optimized FPGA platforms that deliver different feature mixes, including DSP slices, memory blocks and serial transceivers supporting up to 11.2Gb/s to best address a variety of customer applications. Currently, six out of nine Virtex-6 family base devices are shipping. All nine are scheduled to be available in production volumes by the end of the second quarter of CY2010.

About UMC

UMC (NYSE:UMC) (NYSE:TSE:) (NYSE:2303) is a leading global semiconductor foundry that provides advanced technology and manufacturing services for applications spanning every major sector of the IC industry. UMC’s customer-driven foundry solutions allow chip designers to leverage the strength of the company’s leading-edge processes, which include production proven 65nm, 45/40nm, mixed signal/RFCMOS, and a wide range of specialty technologies. Production is supported through 10 wafer manufacturing facilities that include two advanced 300mm fabs; Fab 12A in Taiwan and Singapore-based Fab 12i are both in volume production for a variety of customer products. The company employs approximately 12,000 people worldwide and has offices in Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Europe, and the United States. UMC can be found on the web at http://www.umc.com/ .

About Xilinx

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

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 19, 2010 — Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) will demonstrate how its wide array of high-speed digital tools can address multi-gigabit design challenges in the areas of measurement and simulation. Attendees can connect with Agilent experts at DesignCon, Booth 301, from Feb. 1-4, 2010 at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

Agilent’s high-speed digital solutions address high-performance probing, signal integrity, high-speed interconnect analysis/simulation, jitter analysis, FPGA debug, FBD/DDR memory analysis, Serial-ATA analysis, PCI Express(r) analysis, HDMI 1.3, DisplayPort, Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel. Agilent will demonstrate how its tools provide views into the time and frequency domains and can reveal underlying problems and enable improvements in multi-gigabit designs.

An Agilent sponsored event at DesignCon 2010 is a presentation by Dr. Eric Bogatin, president of Bogatin Enterprises titled “Practical Magic: Signal Integrity Problems Disappear Using the Right Tools.” A 1-minute preview is available on YouTube.

Agilent will demonstrate the following at DesignCon 2010.

• “Getting the Right Answers Fast with Agilent ADS”. Signal integrity engineers who face the multi-gigabit/s barrier, look to ADS for to address high-speed effects such as distortion, mismatch and crosstalk. The ADS Stereo Viewer with NVIDIA 3D Vision allows users to actually see current density and EM fields in 3D.  Agilent’s ADS DDR3 Compliance Design Kit is a 2010 DesignVision Finalist;
• “Simplify De-embedding with Breakthrough Calibration Technology Using the Agilent N1930B-5xP Physical Layer Test System (PLTS) Advanced Calibration Software”. The demonstration uses state-of-the-art calibration algorithms to exploit symmetric fixture geometry to easily extract s-parameters of test fixtures
• “Debug Your Toughest High-Speed Serial Interconnect Designs with the Agilent E5071C ENA Vector Network Analyzer”. This new one-box solution provides simultaneous analysis in both time and frequency domains and significantly exceeds what was possible with traditional solutions;
• “Achieve Comprehensive PDN (Power Distribution Network) Component Measurements with Agilent’s E5061B LF-RF ENA Network Analyzer”. The E5061B LF-RF ENA features 5 Hz to 3 GHz in one box, accurate milliohm measurements, DC-DC converter loop analysis, and a built-in DC bias source for capacitor measurements;
• “Get measurements of  high-speed differential clock jitter up to 7GHz or 12 GHz with Agilent’s new U1818A/B Active Differential Probes with the E5052B Signal Source Analyzer”;
• “Get Unmatched Real-Time Measurement Accuracy with Agilent’s Real-Time Scopes”. The Infiniium DSA/DSO90000A Series scopes deliver superior signal integrity, barrier-breaking memory depth, and unmatched signal analysis and debugging. See how the newly introduced InfiniiSim application, probe de-embedding and virtual probe position transformations, give the 90000A family more accuracy and flexibility in measuring the “real” signal of interest;
• “The Highest Accuracy in Waveform Analysis with Agilent’s 86100C/86108A Scope”. This scope measures high-performance devices more accurately than any scope in the world and performs jitter analysis on long patterns, such as PRBS31; and,
• “Simplified Receiver Tolerance Testing for USB 3.0 and SATA”. Agilent’s new J-BERT N4903B, a 2010 DesignVision Finalist, delivers accurate receiver characterization and compliance testing with new analysis capabilities of retimed and coded data and second-channel option.

DesignCon is the definitive event for electronic design experts spanning chip, package, board, and system domains, addressing common issues in signal integrity, power management, interconnection, and design verification.

Agilent experts also will offer various technical presentations. For more information and a free pass to the event, visitwww.agilent.com/find/DesignCon. Since 1998, Agilent has been a sponsor of DesignCon in partnership with the International Engineering Consortium (IEC).

About Agilent Technologies

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) is the world’s premier measurement company and a technology leader in communications, electronics, life sciences and chemical analysis. The company’s 17,000 employees serve customers in more than 110 countries. Agilent had net revenues of $4.5 billion in fiscal 2009. Information about Agilent is available on the Web at www.agilent.com.