Altera Optimizes 240 IP Cores for Stratix and Cyclone FPGAs

System Designers Can Test Drive IP Cores Today for Industry's Only 0.13-micron Production-Grade FPGAs

San Jose, Calif., March 17, 2003--Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) today announced the immediate availability of more than 240 intellectual property (IP) cores optimized for its Stratix™ and Cyclone™ FPGAs, the only 0.13-micron production-grade FPGAs available today. All of these IP cores are part of Altera's OpenCore® and/or OpenCore Plus evaluation programs-free and easy ways for system designers to evaluate IP cores before purchase. Altera's IP cores are used by system designers around the world as a way to customize their system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) designs for a broad range of applications.

Extending the OpenCore evaluation process, the OpenCore Plus program provides customers with the ability to test their designs in hardware prior to purchase. During the last six months alone, system designers have conducted more than 10,000 IP core evaluations through the OpenCore and OpenCore Plus programs.

"Currently, we are the only programmable logic device (PLD) company to offer an IP evaluation program that includes third-party partner cores and in-hardware testing," said Craig Lytle, vice president of Altera's intellectual property business unit. "By allowing designers to evaluate an IP core before they make a commitment to a final design, we are able to help them reduce risk while accelerating their time-to-market."

Designers can also target their designs at two more production-qualified devices, the Stratix EP1S60 and the Cyclone EP1C12 devices, which begin shipping to customers this week. This brings to 10 the number of production qualified FPGAs built on TSMC's state-of-the-art 0.13-micron, all-layer copper process technology that Altera is now shipping.

Pricing and Availability
All 240 IP cores optimized for Stratix and Cyclone FPGAs are available for purchase now. For more information and a complete list of Altera's MegaCore® logic functions and Altera Megafunction Partner Program (AMPPSM) intellectual property functions, visit the Altera IP MegaStore™ web site at www.altera.com/IPmegastore.

About Stratix Devices
Stratix devices are based on a 1.5-V, 0.13-micron all-layer-copper SRAM process, with densities ranging from 10,570 to 79,040 logic elements (LEs) and up to 7 Mbits of RAM. Stratix devices offer up to 22 DSP blocks with up to 176 embedded multipliers, optimized for DSP applications that require intensive data processing. Stratix devices support various differential I/O electrical standards such as the LVDS, LVPECL, PCML, and HyperTransport™ standards as well as high-speed interfaces including the UTOPIA IV, SPI-4 Phase 2, SFI-4, 10G Ethernet XSBI, RapidIO™, HyperTransport, and other interfaces. Stratix devices also offer a complete clock management solution with their hierarchical clock structure and up to 12 phase-locked loops (PLLs). For more information about the Stratix device family, visit www.altera.com/stratix.

About the Cyclone Device Family
Cyclone devices are the industry's lowest-cost FPGAs. With densities ranging from 2,910 to 20,060 logic elements, Cyclone devices feature up to 288 Kbits of embedded memory and are based on a 1.5-V all-layer-copper SRAM process. Cyclone devices offer up to two phase-locked loops (PLLs) per device and a hierarchical clocking structure for extensive on- and off-chip clock management. Each device supports a variety of single-ended I/O standards such as LVTTL, LVCMOS, PCI, and SSTL-2/3. Cyclone devices have dedicated circuitry to interface with high-performance external single data rate (SDR) SDRAM and double data rate (DDR) SDRAM and FCRAM memory devices. For more information about the Cyclone device family, visit www.altera.com/cyclone.

About Altera
Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) is the world's pioneer in system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) solutions. Combining programmable logic technology with software tools, intellectual property, and technical services, Altera provides high-value programmable solutions to approximately 14,000 customers worldwide. More information is available at www.altera.com.

Altera, The Programmable Solutions Company, the stylized Altera logo, specific device designations, and all other words that are identified as trademarks and/or service marks are, unless noted otherwise, the trademarks and service marks of Altera Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. HyperTransport is a trademark of the HyperTransport Consortium. RapidIO is a trademark of the RapidIO Trade Association. All other product or service names are the property of their respective holders.