Xilinx, a worldwide leader in programmable logic chip design, has allocated £500,000 for research projects at Queens University Belfast.

The funding will see the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Queens carry out collaborative research, experimentation and development with Xilinx at a new Programmable Systems Laboratory, established with the multinational corporation's support.

The new facility at Queens, which already ranks among the top research institutions in Europe, is the brainchild of Professors Roger Woods and Alan Marshall, who approached Xilinx with their ideas.

"The evolution of new telecommunications networks hinges on the level of future programmability which can be ingrained into electronic systems prior to their actual establishment," said Professor Woods.

"Our goal is to create network systems that can change themselves after installation in order to meet differing requirements. The key to this inherent flexibility lies in programmable logic development and the creation of highly powerful and scalable 'System on Chip' products."

Under the deal, Xilinx will fund high-level research activity, codenamed PIPPIN (Programmable IC Platforms for Programmable IP Networks) while also donating advanced technologies in a move designed to yield new concepts in semiconductor design for future telecommunications networks.

Xilinx also has an R&D facility in Dublin, where the company has its European headquarters. Engineers at the Dublin centre and the company's corporate headquarters in California's Silicon Valley will work closely with the team at Queens University.

Xilinx's Chief Technology Officer Ivo Bolsens said: "The School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Queens represents a centre of excellence in programmable networks and reconfigurable hardware. The combination of both areas of study in one research institution provided compelling reasons for this collaboration."

In the past year, Xilinx, which hold patents on over 800 innovations, invested over US$220 million in the research and development of new technology.

(SP)