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.
(Logo: http://www.prnasia.com/xprn/sa/200703010917.jpg
)
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.
For more information about Avnet, please visit
http://www.em.avnet.com or http://www.em.avnetasia.com
Follow us on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/AvnetDesignWire
Join our technical forums @: http://community.em.avnet.com
View product and company videos @
http://www.avnetondemand.com/components/channel/7/
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: [email protected]
Bethany Helvie, Public Relations
Phone: +1-480-643-7183
Email: [email protected]
Brian Paterson (EBA)
Phone: +852-2122-9762
Email: [email protected]
SOURCE Avnet Electronics Marketing