HONG KONG, April 19 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Avnet Electronics Marketing (NYSE: AVT) and Xilinx, Inc. (Nasdaq: XLNX) have concluded their five-month, 37-city global X-fest technical seminar series - smashing attendance expectations and earning kudos from those involved.
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The free one-day training sessions offered practical, how-to system level design instruction featuring the Spartan(R)-6 and Virtex(R)-6 FPGA families from Xilinx, as well as key enabling technologies from leading suppliers including Cypress Semiconductor, Intel, Maxim Integrated Products, National Semiconductor, NXP, Texas Instruments and Tyco Electronics.
"Despite industry-wide expense reductions, particularly in non-essential travel, X-fest attendance was up 120 percent over projections," said Tim Barber, senior vice president, design chain business development, worldwide for Avnet Electronics Marketing. Nearly 5,500 attendees came to sites throughout Asia, Europe, North America and Japan from October 2009 through February 2010 to participate in the unique workshop/exposition forum, which brought customers up-to-date on leading-edge technologies and allows them to bring solutions to market more quickly and with greater expertise. Technology experts from Avnet and Xilinx presented a slate of multi-track training sessions ranging from building block to multi-supplier system level solutions showcasing innovative design techniques, methodologies and reference designs for today's hottest applications from PCIe and video to wireless and embedded networking.
Attendees said the solutions approach was the biggest draw of the event. "The Avnet X-fest event not only provided a communication platform between IC manufacturers and customers, but also a channel for customers to exchange their design thoughts. X-fest introduced advanced product applications and leading edge design concepts that helped enhance local engineers' electronic product design capabilities. It also provided insights into electronic product design and development market trends. Avnet X-fest delivered an in-depth look at the next generation of FPGAs, including a presentation on the performance and impact capabilities of Xilinx FPGAs in terms of inspiring FPGA design innovation and development in China," said Yu Rui, research and development manager, Run Technologies Co. Ltd. in Beijing, the network security service provider for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and World Expo 2010 Shanghai.
"I have found the X-fest seminars of great use over the last few years and so have other members of my group," said Spencer Saunders, engineering manager, Platforms Group, at ARM in the U.K. "We try to ensure at least two engineers attend to allow us to get coverage of the many useful parallel tracks. It gives us the ability to see products from other companies that complement the Xilinx FPGA enabling us to make informed decisions about board design and component section. With our development of a dual Virtex 6 prototyping board, this information has been useful and ensured we can develop and deliver in as short a time as possible."
In addition to the specialized training, X-fest also featured a display of partner exhibits, giving attendees the opportunity to interact directly with factory experts who shared their insights into exciting new products and advanced technologies, and demonstrated the latest development platforms.
"X-fest is a great opportunity for GateRocket to interact with thousands of Xilinx FPGA users," said Dave Orecchio, CEO of GateRocket. GateRocket participated in select X-fest seminars in North America. "Attendees understand the challenges of FPGA design, and those who visited GateRocket at the conference were excited to learn about our innovative FPGA debugging solutions that can cut the number of Synthesis-Place-Route cycles in the lab by up to 50 percent," he added. "X-fest also gave us an opportunity to exchange ideas with FPGA users about the latest technologies and to demonstrate our solution for advanced FPGAs."
"The supply chain's appetite for solutions is growing. Engineers come to X-fest to learn real-world system design concepts that they can apply directly to the challenges they face back in the lab," said Barber. "Our unique multi-vendor, technical format creates a one-stop forum for engineers to get multiple supplier representation and the bundled solutions they need to compete in today's demanding marketplace."
"X-fest continues to be an ideal place for designers to learn about the latest FPGA and platform innovations that help them solve their various design challenges," said Tim Erjavec, senior director, Platform Solutions and Services Marketing at Xilinx. "In addition, to help accelerate and simplify their development needs, the event allows designers unparalleled access to the vast ecosystem of third-party vendors that complement and expand the FPGA platform design possibilities."
Those who missed the worldwide event can still reap its educational benefits. Videos of the 12 workshops are available online at: http://em.avnet.com/xfestvideos
Plans are underway for the next X-fest technical seminar series, tentatively scheduled to begin in the Spring or Fall of 2012.
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About Xilinx
Xilinx, Inc. (Nasdaq: XLNX) is the worldwide leader of programmable logic solutions. Additional information about Xilinx is available at http://www.xilinx.com .
About Avnet Electronics Marketing Asia
Avnet Electronics Marketing Asia is part of Phoenix-based Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT), a Fortune 500 company with fiscal 2009 sales exceeding USD16.23 billion. Serving customers in more than 70 countries, Avnet is one of the largest distributors of electronic components, computer products and embedded technology.
Avnet Electronics Marketing has a significant presence in Asia-Pacific -- the fastest growing electronics market in the world. With its regional headquarters in Singapore, the company has offices in over 40 locations in Asia. Avnet Electronics Marketing Asia distributes semiconductors, interconnect, passive and electromechanical components to serve a wide range of customers including original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), electronic manufacturing services (EMS) providers, and small- to medium-sized businesses, and provides associated design-chain and supply-chain services. The company's web site is located at http://www.em.avnetasia.com .
For further information please contact:
Jaime Chan
Phone: +852-2410-2735
Email: jaime.chan@avnet.com
Bethany Helvie, Public Relations
Phone: +1-480-643-7183
Email: bethany.helvie@avnet.com
Brian Paterson (EBA)
Phone: +852-2122-9762
Email: brian@eba.com.hk
