National Instruments Introduces Digital Hardware With Xilinx FPGA Technology for...

National Instruments Introduces Digital Hardware With Xilinx FPGA Technology
for Hands-On Learning

Project Lead The Way Curriculum Adopts New Digital Logic Add-On Board for NI
ELVIS II+ to Train Thousands of Students in FPGA Programming

AUSTIN, Texas, May 19, 2009 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- National Instruments
(Nasdaq: NATI) today introduced a digital learning device that gives high
school, university and vocational students hands-on experience with digital
logic and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) technology. The NI Digital
Electronics FPGA Board, which integrates with the NI Educational Laboratory
Virtual Instrumentation Suite (NI ELVIS) II and NI ELVIS II+ educational
design and prototyping platforms, combines analog and digital design
instruction into one affordable, easy-to-use platform. When combined with NI
ELVIS, this system eliminates the need for multiple sets of instrumentation to
teach analog and digital electronics concepts, thus saving money and space for
educational institutions. The new board is a result of the NI collaboration
with Xilinx, the world's largest supplier of programmable logic devices and
inventor of FPGA technology, and already has been slated for adoption by
Project Lead The Way (PLTW), one of the nation's leading providers of
pre-engineering and science curricula.

"We are excited to collaborate with NI on this project because this board can
be used simultaneously in high schools and in universities," said Patrick
Lysaght, senior director of the Xilinx University Program at Xilinx. "Students
can learn everything from the basics of electronics all the way to advanced
FPGA design with this one affordable board that combines digital logic and
circuit design in one unified environment."

The FPGA-based hardware is designed to be programmed with both the NI LabVIEW
graphical programming environment and Xilinx ISE tools. With its adoption by
PLTW, the FPGA board will be incorporated into U.S. high school technology
curricula, and thousands of students will gain experience that correlates
directly to real-world industrial and scientific applications of FPGA
programming. The board's widespread adoption, ease of use and
cost-effectiveness make it ideal for engineering education.

"The new logic board based on NI ELVIS will change the way students learn
digital logic design at the high school level," said Tom White, director of
technology at PLTW. "More than 500 schools use our materials, and we're
thrilled that, with this new product, the many students who learn lower-level
introduction to logic now can make quick, natural progress to high-level
languages like LabVIEW, which makes learning fun."

The centerpiece of the NI Digital Electronics FPGA Board is a Xilinx
Spartan-3E FPGA, which can be programmed using either NI LabVIEW or the Xilinx
ISE webPACK, a free, downloadable software toolkit. Through the NI Developer
Zone, educators can view related tutorials and download free curricula written
to use with both LabVIEW and Verilog.

Because of its integration with NI ELVIS II and the new NI ELVIS II+ platform,
the system provides a full spectrum of instruments with which students can
gain experience on building real-world test benches that involve
instrumentation. The NI ELVIS platform includes 12 instruments, including a
function generator, digital multimeter (DMM) and a 100 MS/s oscilloscope on
the newly introduced NI ELVIS II+. Students using the NI Digital Electronics
FPGA Board can learn circuit concepts by taking advantage of the NI Multisim
circuit design and SPICE simulation platform for SPICE simulation and the NI
Multisim Circuit Design Community, an online resource for collaboration and
discussion of circuit design topics.

Readers can view a webcast about the NI Digital Electronics FPGA Board at
www.ni.com/defpga.

About National Instruments
National Instruments (www.ni.com) is transforming the way engineers and
scientists design, prototype and deploy systems for measurement, automation
and embedded applications. NI empowers customers with off-the-shelf software
such as NI LabVIEW and modular cost-effective hardware, and sells to a broad
base of more than 30,000 different companies worldwide, with no one customer
representing more than 3 percent of revenue and no one industry representing
more than 15 percent of revenue. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has more
than 5,000 employees and direct operations in more than 40 countries. For the
past 10 years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to
work for in America. Readers can obtain investment information from the
company's investor relations department by calling (512) 683-5090, e-mailing
nati@ni.com or visiting www.ni.com/nati.

LabVIEW, Multisim, National Instruments, NI and ni.com are trademarks of
National Instruments. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or
trade names of their respective companies.

Editor Contact: Hilary Marchbanks, (512) 683-5937
Reader Contact: Ernest Martinez, (800) 258-7022

SOURCE National Instruments

editors, Hilary Marchbanks, +1-512-683-5937, or readers, Ernest Martinez,
1-800-258-7022, both of National Instruments