Mentor Graphics Targets Inventra IP for Actel FPGA Devices

Mentor Graphics Targets Inventra IP for Actel FPGA Devices
Optimized Netlists Available Over the Web for SX-A Family of High-End FPGAs; Relationship Furthers Both Mentor's and Actel's Targeted IP Strategies

IP 2000, Santa Clara, Calif. - March 20, 2000 - Mentor Graphics Corporation today announced that a selection of its Inventra? Intellectual Property (IP) cores are now available for use in the SX-A family of high-performance field programmable gate array (FPGA) devices from Actel Corporation. The partnership with Actel is the first strike in Mentor's IP strategy to make cores for the surging FPGA market available risk-free over the worldwide web.

Available via the Mentor Graphics® web site (http://www.mentor.com/inventra), a selection of the pre-verified Inventra IP cores are provided as optimized netlists for Actel's SX-A FPGA devices. Netlists of these cores enable easy integration into system designs in applications that include telecommunications infrastructure, networking and e-appliances. Mentor Graphics plans additional availability in the coming months.

While FPGAs continue to offer significant benefits, like time to market and flexibility, today's FPGAs are also moving into the traditional ASIC space of high density and high performance -without the ASIC drawbacks of large NRE (non-recurring engineering) costs and up-front volume commitments. According to market research firm Gartner Group Inc., the programmable logic market, which includes FPGAs, accounts for approximately $17 billion in sales today and is headed toward $33.7 billion by 2003, a compound annual growth rate of 18% over the next five years. Gartner Group also recently predicted that during the next year programmable logic devices will take over the entire sub-100,000 logic gate market.

Recognizing this, Mentor's Inventra IP division is entering this market, with renewed focus, through an Internet approach. This move gives FPGA designers unprecedented convenience to access desired IP for licensing and evaluation. As a first step in that direction, the partnership with Actel will immediately provide customers with Inventra IP cores optimized for Actel devices. This partnership also falls in line with Actel's efforts to differentiate its IP strategy.

Mick O'Brien, general manager for the Inventra Intellectual Property division of Mentor Graphics said, "A successful design reuse environment requires both a broad portfolio of readily available IP and a standard infrastructure and methodology for IP integration." O'Brien continued, "To this end, the Inventra division offers an increasing selection of OpenMORE-rated, pre-verified cores via the web that developers can use and integrate with confidence. Actel and its customers will be the first to reap the benefits of our focused IP strategy. By providing convenient access to IP for licensing and evaluation, we're enabling rapid time-to-market for designs using Actel's high-performance FPGAs."

"I see this as an excellent strategic move for both Mentor and Actel," said Jerry Worchel, president of inSearch Research, a leading semiconductor research company based in Phoenix, AZ. "In Actel, Mentor's Inventra gets an FPGA partner that has recently expanded both its product technologies and device densities. With Mentor's sizeable weight and credibility behind it, Actel is now able to provide a wide range of readily available, pre-verified IP that will help its customers meet their shrinking time-to-market windows for new products."

Optimized Netlists for Actel FPGAs
A selection of the Mentor Graphics Inventra IP core library has been targeted to Actel SX-A FPGAs. These cores, with corresponding netlists, are optimized for use in Mentor's best-in-class FPGA Advantage? design flow. FPGA Advantage is a complete HDL design solution tailored to meet the needs of high-end FPGA designers. With its tight integration of graphical capture, simulation, synthesis, and management, this solution replaces the traditional multi-vendor, multi-tool approach to FPGA design.

"Today's time-to-market issues have put an enormous amount of pressure on the schedules of our customers' engineers," said Paul Romano, director of technical marketing, Unique Technologies, a leading North American electronic components distributor. "Unique needed to apply this time-to-market scenario to an actual design opportunity in Canada and signed on as a beta user for Actel. We have been able to take on the customer's design requirement using 1284 and 16x50 Inventra IP cores optimized for Actel devices. We are now looking at design reuse of this IP to allow for other end-product designs. Being able to offer multiple designs from a single IP platform will aid us in helping our customers achieve their strategic time-to-market, price and performance objectives."

Dennis Kish, vice president of strategic marketing at Actel stated, "Actel's fine-grained, ASIC-like architectures are ideal for quickly and easily porting cores to our devices. The wide range of IP that Mentor's Inventra group provides is a great fit for our customer base and the strategic alliance gives us a very credible source of proven IP cores for FPGA design. Becoming the initial programmable logic partner in their FPGA program lays an important cornerstone in Actel's strategy to build a reliable IP resource for our customers."

SX-A Device Family From Actel
The combination of speed and low cost found in Actel's SX-A (0.25/0.22µ) FPGA family opens the door to next-generation designs that could not previously be implemented in programmable logic. SX-A devices exceed the speeds of other FPGAs and provide time-to-market savings while offering an ASIC-like, single-chip, low-power solution-enabling Actel's SX-A FPGAs to deliver "performance without penalty."

Licensing and Availability
Inventra IP cores for Actel's SX-A line of high-performance FPGAs can be licensed and downloaded now from the Mentor Graphics web site at http://www.mentor.com/inventra. Netlists of the available cores have been validated for use in the FPGA Advantage flow. For more information on the Mentor Graphics Inventra core portfolio, please contact your nearest Mentor Graphics sales representative or visit the Mentor Graphics website.

About Actel Corp.
Actel Corp (Nasdaq: ACTL) is dedicated to becoming the field programmable gate array (FPGA) provider of choice. The company's FPGAs are used by manufacturers of communications, computer, consumer, industrial control, military/aerospace, and other electronic systems to bring complex, high-density digital designs to market rapidly. Actel, the world's leading supplier of FPGAs based on antifuse technology, has recently introduced ProASIC, the industry's first family of reprogrammable FPGAs based on Flash technology, and is also developing a line of reprogrammable SRAM products. The company is traded on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol ACTL and is located at 955 East Arques Avenue, Sunnyvale, California, 94086-4533. Telephone: 888-99-ACTEL (992-2835). Internet: http://www.actel.com.

About Mentor Graphics
Mentor Graphics Corporation (Nasdaq: MENT) is a world leader in electronic hardware and software design solutions, providing products and consulting services for the world's largest electronics and semiconductor companies. Established in 1981, the company reported revenues over the last 12 months of over $500 million and employs approximately 2,700 people worldwide. Company headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777. World Wide Web site: http://www.mentor.com.

Mentor Graphics is a registered trademark of Mentor Graphics Corporation. Inventra and FPGA Advantage are trademarks of Mentor Graphics Corporation. The Actel name and logo are registered trademarks of Actel Corporation. All other company or product names are the registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.

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For more information, please contact:
Mentor Graphics Contact Sabina Burns Marketing Communications 408.487.7125 sabina_burns@mentor.com	Actel Corporation Contact Don Davis Public Relations 408.739.1010 don.davis@actel.com
Public Relations Contact Jeremiah Glodoveza Benjamin Group/BSMG Worldwide 408.559.6090 jeremiah@benjamingroup.com