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Xilinx Acquires NGCodec for Cloud Video Encoding IP and Talent

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Xilinx, the San Jose-based programmable logic device company and inventor of the field-programmable gate array (FPGA) announced it has acquired NGCodec for an undisclosed sum. NGCodec specializes in low-latency cloud video encoding, and uses FPGA acceleration to provide low-bitrate and high-quality live streams.

News 1NGCodec supports H.265/HEVC and VP9, and will soon support H.264/AVC and AV1. It announced at the end of 2018 that Twitch is a customer for VP9 encoding.

The two companies have worked closely for year, and their offices are nearby (NGCodec's headquarters is in Sunnyvale, California). Xilinx has been a partner and strategic investor of NGCodec since 2016, and they've previously collaborated on next-generation FPGA-enabled video codec technology.

Xilinx chose to acquire NGCodec in order to gain valuable video IP and talent that will help it prove its value to customers. Cloud video is already a key driver for the company's data center group business, which it expects to grow by roughly 50% year-over-year through 2023.

With the sale now complete, the NGCodec team will report to Nazeem Noordeen, corporate vice president of data center engineering and Johan Janssen, senior director of compute video, working under Salil Raje, Xilinx’s executive vice president for the  data center group.

Xilinx declined to discuss future products or technologies it will pursue following the acquisition.

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