Xilinx History

In February 1984 they incorporated the venture as Xilinx.

Xilinx began selling its first product in November 1985.

But by late 1987, after injections of venture capital amounting to more than $18 million, Xilinx was offering a new generation of FPGA chips that, with 9,000 gates, could compete technologically with all but the most advanced non-field-programmable products.

So, in 1989 Vonderschmitt convinced American Micro to buy 20 percent of the company at a 10 percent premium and dissolve the original agreement.

――――――, "Xilinx Announces Record Results," Business Wire, October 11, 1990.

By 1993 Xilinx was capturing more than $250 million in annual revenue and generating net income of $41.3 million.

Sutherland, Lani, "Corporate Profits for Xilinx," Business Wire, February 25, 1994.

By 1995, the company reached $550 million in revenue.

Early in 1996 Vonderschmitt stepped down as chief executive of the company he had co-founded.

Xilinx posted net income of $127 million on revenues of $614 million in the fiscal year ended March 28, 1998.

Xilinx and Altera each held a little more than 30 percent of the PLD market in 1999, according to Electronic Business, although Altera was then a bit larger.

Though revenues were up to $1.7 billion in the 2000–01 fiscal year, net income slipped from $653 million to $36 million.

Eight years of legal wrangling came to an end in 2001 when Altera agreed to pay Xilinx $20 million to settle a patent infringement dispute.

Xilinx lost $113 million on revenues of $1 billion in 2002.

Vonderschmitt remained as chairman of the board for another seven years and passed away in 2004.

Xilinx had grown to employ about 3,000 people. Its revenues were $1.7 billion in the fiscal year ended April 1, 2006, while net income had climbed to $354 million.

Xilinx is the only (as of 2007) FPGA vendor to distribute a native Linux freeware synthesis toolchain.

Moshe Gavrielov – an EDA and ASIC industry veteran who was appointed president and CEO in early 2008 – introduced targeted design platforms that combine FPGAs with software, IP cores, boards and kits to address focused target applications.

With the introduction of the Xilinx 7 series in June, 2010, the company has moved to three major FPGA product families, the high-end Virtex, the mid-range Kintex family and the low-cost Artix family, retiring the Spartan brand, which ends with the Xilinx Series 6 FPGAs.

In January 2011, Xilinx acquired design tool firm AutoESL Design Technologies and added System C high-level design for its 6- and 7-series FPGA families.

In April 2012, the company introduced the Vivado Design Suite – a next-generation SoC-strength design environment for advanced electronic system designs.

In May, 2014, the company shipped the first of the next generation FPGAs: the 20 nm UltraScale.

In September 2017, Amazon.com and Xilinx started a campaign for FPGA adoption.

The initial Alveo line included the U200 and U250, which featured 16 nm UltraScale+ Virtex FPGAs and DDR4 SDRAM. Those two cards were launched in October 2018 at the Xilinx Developer Forum.

In January 2019 K&L Gates, a law firm representing Xilinx sent a DMCA cease and desist letter to an EE YouTuber claiming trademark infringement for featuring the Xilinx logo next to Altera's in an educational video.

In September 2020, Xilinx announced its new chipset, the T1 Telco Accelerator card, that can be used for units running on an open RAN 5G network.

Their stockholders approved acquisition on April 7, 2021.