Our History

Read about the origin of Xilinx and the Xilinx name

Timeline of Significant Events in Xilinx History

1984

Ross Freeman, Bernie Vonderschmitt, and Jim Barnett found Xilinx.
The company's business and management mission and philosophy are created, a new kind of company is born. The concept for a new type of product, the Field Programmable Gate Array, takes shape. Read more about how Xilinx began.

1985

Xilinx introduces its first product, the XC2064™.
It's the first-ever FPGA, a radical new form of programmable logic.

1987

Sales office established in Weybridge, England.
This is the first sales office outside North America, targeted to serve the European market.

1988

The company opens its first overseas office in Tokyo.
Xilinx K.K. is born. Initial focus is to serve Seiko, our first wafer supplier/partner.

1989

Xilinx founder, Ross Freeman, passes away.
His dream for the team and the technology lives on.

1990

Xilinx goes public at $10 per share, after reaching several quarters of profitability.
Shares are $0.83 when adjusted for splits. This is a major milestone along the path to realizing the company vision.

1991

The XC4000™ family of FPGAs is introduced.
This is the first broadly adopted FPGA and will become the primary Xilinx revenue driver for the 90's.

1993

Xilinx Scotland is established in Edinburgh.
This team's focus on IP solutions core and software development brings Xilinx a considerable competitive advantage.

1995

Xilinx Ireland officially opens in Dublin.
This is our first major site in Europe, establishing manufacturing and engineering capability outside the U.S.

Xilinx Colorado is established in Boulder.
Boulder employees significantly increase software development capability in the company. This is the first major North American site outside of Silicon Valley. It has since moved to Longmont, Colorado.

1996

Wim Roelandts joins as CEO and President.
He brings 30 years of Hewlett-Packard experience to his new assignment.

1997

CREATIVE Values dialogue is created throughout the company.
All employees participate in a process to articulate the values of Xilinx. These are: customer focus, respect, excellence, accountability, teamwork, integrity, very open communications and enjoying our work. The first letter of each value forms the acronym: CREATIVE.

1998

Virtex®™ FPGA family is introduced.
This is a major step in FPGA architecture and opens up new markets for the company. The Virtex family becomes the primary revenue driver to date.

1999

Xilinx Albuquerque opens with acquisition of CoolRunner™ team and technology.
This product line offers new low power and lower cost CPLD products to customers.

2000

Xilinx revenue exceeds $1B.
The company reaches the billion-dollar milestone only 10 years after going public. Employees take out a full-page ad saying "Thanks a Billion for Your Leadership" as a tribute to CEO Wim Roelandts at a pivotal point for the company.

2003

Spartan®™-3 family of products is introduced.
This very low-cost product is the world's first 90nm FPGA. The Spartan-3 technology puts us considerably ahead of our competition and in the company of premier advanced semiconductor manufacturers.

2003

Wim Roelandts becomes Chairman of the Board.
Bernie Vonderschmitt retires; the last company founder leaves an impressive legacy.

2004

Xilinx celebrates its 20th anniversary.
The company observes its first 20 years of life by honoring employees, customers, shareholders, partners, and local communities.

2008

Moshe Gavrielov is named President and CEO.
Wim Roelandts remains Chairman of the Board.

 

How Xilinx Began

New Technology

Two brilliant engineers and a marketing guru working in Silicon Valley in 1984 had a dream. Bernie Vonderschmitt, Ross Freeman, and Jim Barnett dreamed of starting a different kind of company.

Ross Freeman, Xilinx co-founder, invented the "field programmable gate array" (FPGA), a new form of programmable logic.	Bernie Vonderschmitt, Xilinx co-founder, pioneered the revolutionary concept of a fabless semiconductor.

They wanted to create a company that would develop and launch state-of-the-art technology in an entirely new field. And they wanted to lead it in such a way that the people who worked there loved their jobs, enjoyed working together, and were fascinated with their work.

The technology that propelled Xilinx into being was considered an off-the-wall concept in 1984. Invented by Xilinx co-founder Ross Freeman, the new semiconductor, now known as the field programmable gate array, was a completely new form of programmable logic.

These chips could be personalized by customers to perform a variety of functions by programming them with the help of software. "The concept," says Xilinx Fellow Bill Carter, who was the eighth employee to be hired in the new company in 1984, "required lots of transistors and, at that time, transistors were considered extremely precious. People thought that Ross's idea was pretty far out."

Ross postulated that transistors, because of Moore's Law (the doubling of transistor density every 18 months) would be getting less expensive and, therefore, less precious every year. In the years to come, a multi-billion dollar market for field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) emerged, creating the foundation for the successful enterprise that Xilinx is today. Sadly, Ross Freeman passed away in 1989. The technology he invented is thriving and continues to delight more and more customers in an ever-widening breadth of industries.

Effective Partnerships

Bernie Vonderschmitt, an engineer and an MBA graduate, came up with a powerful business model for the young company. When he was General Manager of the Solid State Division of RCA, he became convinced, working at the time with three in-house foundries making semiconductors, that semiconductor factories (or fabs) were expensive and burdensome. "If I ever start a semiconductor company, it will be fabless," he vowed. "We'll find partners who can do our manufacturing for us."

And that is exactly what Xilinx did in 1984. Since then, the idea has become so compelling and popular that today there are approximately 700 fabless semiconductor companies around the world.

Inspired Employees

However, the three founders wanted to not only revolutionize technology but the way companies are managed as well. Ross Freeman put it best. He hoped to start a company that had solid, ethical values, invited employee loyalty, made a good and useful product, helped make employees feel like owners, and encouraged people to enjoy their work.

The co-founders called this set of values and people objectives their "philosophy" and looked for employees who felt comfortable in this environment. And their theory - which has proven correct - was that if you created this kind of community atmosphere for clever and inventive people, they would stay, keeping their innovation and expertise in the company.

These original values regarding the treatment of employees and the way they interact with each other provided the basis for how Xilinx operates today. They help make Xilinx a great place to work.

And the technology that the three men introduced to the world is more popular than ever. It has become pervasive and mainstream, thanks to the technology and cost benefits that have come about because of Moore's Law.

The dream that Bernie, Ross, and Jim talked about in 1984 is a reality today, proving that dreams do come true.