Achronix Semiconductor and Chartered to Collaborate on Low-Power Gigahertz Speed FPGAs

“By aligning with Chartered and leveraging the Common Platform technology at 90nm and beyond, we are working with a fab partner that understands and can further enhance our core differentiators – speed and power,” said Dr. Clinton Kelly, IV, Vice President of Advanced Research at Achronix. “The Common Platform technology – offered by Chartered, IBM and Samsung - also mitigates our production risk and allows us to develop our product in one process, and go to fab in multiple locations.”

“Many factors contributed to our decision to work with Chartered on the technology and business sides,” said John Lofton Holt, Chairman and CEO of Achronix. “But, technology and business factors aside, Chartered is clearly committed to being a close partner in the success of Achronix in 2006 and beyond – and that was an important part of the decision.”

Achronix will leverage the Common Platform’s 90nm CMOS process for its ULTRA line of commercial products in 2006 and 2007 and plans to begin 65nm fabrication “when the market dictates it,” said Dr. Kelly. “We have already proven that our devices can perform at nearly 2 GHz at 90nm, so the move to 65nm and beyond will be driven not by speed, but by the evolving density and power requirements of our customers.”

“Chartered is pleased to partner with an impressive emerging company like Achronix, as we collaborate to help bring its innovative products to market,” said Dominique Simon, President of the Americas Region at Chartered. “Achronix recognizes how to leverage the breadth of the Common Platform to reduce risk and better meet its market need.”

About Achronix Semiconductor

Achronix Semiconductor is a fabless privately held New York-based Corporation that builds the world's fastest field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). FPGAs have reconfigurable digital circuits and are ubiquitous in the world of digital electronics. Applications of FPGAs include Digital Signal Processing, communications, aerospace and defense systems, ASIC prototyping, medical imaging, computer vision, speech recognition, cryptography, bioinformatics, computer hardware emulation and a growing range of other areas. They parallel ASICs, and are used to enable short time-to-market, fast debugging of prototypes and field upgrades. In terms of cost and performance, they break even at a lower quantity than an ASIC. The Company's products are designed to operate with performance and cost characteristics that make the break even much higher and create opportunities for new types of products that require high performance computing but haven’t been able to use FPGAs to date. Information about Achronix can be found on the Internet at http://www.achronix.com via phone at +1.877.GHZ.FPGA or via email at pr@achronix.com.

About Chartered

Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (Nasdaq: CHRT and SGX-ST: Chartered), one of the world’s top dedicated semiconductor foundries, offers leading-edge technologies down to 65 nanometer (nm), enabling today's system-on-chip designs. The company further serves the needs of customers through its collaborative, joint development approach on a technology roadmap that extends to 45nm. Chartered’s strategy is based on open and comprehensive design enablement solutions, manufacturing enhancement methodologies, and a commitment to flexible sourcing. In Singapore, the company operates a 300mm fabrication facility and four 200mm facilities. Information about Chartered can be found at http://www.charteredsemi.com.