Actel's ProASIC Devices Deliver Unprecedented Design Flexibility at Lowest Total System Cost

As Part of Industry's Widest Selection of Standard Packages, Actel Delivers 34 Percent Smaller Package and Up To 32 Percent More I/O Than Competition

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., October 1, 2003 - Delivering unprecedented design flexibility at the industry's lowest cost, Actel Corporation (Nasdaq: ACTL) today announced the availability of 10 new packages for its flash-based ProASIC^PLUS field-programmable gate array (FPGA) family. With the industry's widest package selection, up to 50 percent larger than competitive offerings, Actel now offers packaging options that include fine-line ball-grid array (FG) and thin-quad (TQ) packages, among others. With today's announcement, Actel is the only FPGA supplier to offer the small-footprint FG144 package, which is 34 percent smaller than any competitive offering. Actel also supports the highest I/O count for the standard TQ144 package, 32 percent more than the competition, to deliver the industry's best cost per I/O. This robust selection, combined with the cost-savings offered by the single-chip, live at power up ProASIC^PLUS family enables Actel to deliver unparalleled design flexibility and the industry's lowest total system cost.

"As market windows continue to shrink, designers are challenged to rapidly meet changing system requirements while quickly and cost-effectively delivering next-generation devices to market," said Barry Marsh, vice president of product marketing at Actel. "With no external configuration memory or microcontroller needed, our single-chip, live at power up ProASIC^PLUS FPGAs deliver a 25 percent reduction in total system cost compared with competitive offerings. In addition, with a wide range of new packaging options, the family enables superior ease of migration and best-in-class design flexibility to ensure that our customers can make the best design tradeoffs for their applications."

Rounding out the industry's widest selection of standard packaging options, Actel now offers six FG packages ranging from FG144 to FG1152, two TQ packages, TQ100 and TQ144, and the PQ208 and BG456 packages. This extended package offering, combined with the low-power and security benefits of Actel's reprogrammable ProASIC^PLUS FPGAs, enables designers to leverage Actel devices for a broad range of applications. Specifically, the FG144 and TQ100 packages are widely used in cost-sensitive, small form factor consumer electronics and portable applications. Enabling easy design migration for Actel's customers, ProASIC^PLUS devices are pin-to-pin and footprint compatible between family members supporting the same packages and in some cases different packages.

About the ProASIC^PLUS Family

The ProASIC^PLUS family, Actel's second-generation of flash-based FPGAs, consists of seven devices ranging in density from 75,000 to 1-million system gates. The combination of a fine-grained, single-chip ASIC-like architecture and nonvolatile flash configuration memory makes Actel's ProASIC^PLUS offering a strong ASIC alternative. The devices are live at power up, low power, highly secure and require no separate configuration memory, all characteristics shared by ASICs. Key features of the ProASIC Plus family include multiple phase-locked loops (PLLs), support for up to 198k bits of two-port embedded SRAM and 712 user-configurable I/Os, and improved in-system programmability (ISP).

Pricing and Availability

Actel's ProASIC^PLUS devices are fully qualified, shipping in volume/production quantities today and are available with over 10 different part package combinations available for under $10 in 100K unit volume. For further information about Actel's ProASIC^PLUS FPGAs and packaging solutions, please contact Actel.

About Actel

Actel Corporation is a supplier of innovative programmable logic solutions, including field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) based on antifuse and flash technologies, high-performance intellectual property (IP) cores, software development tools and design services targeted for the high-speed communications, application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) replacement and radiation-tolerant markets. Founded in 1985, Actel employs approximately 500 people worldwide. The Company is traded on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol ACTL and is headquartered at 2061 Stierlin Court, Mountain View, CA, 94043-4655. Telephone: 888-99-ACTEL (992-2835). Internet: http://www.actel.com.

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