VinChip and Altera to Provide USB 2.0 Cores To The Embedded Market

Altera PLD Users Now Have Access to USB 2.0 Cores for use in Routers, Telecom Switches, Digital Cameras, and Hard Disk Drives

San Jose, Calif., September 17, 2001- Altera Corporation (Nasdaq: ALTR) customers now have access to VinChip Systems' extensive USB Intellectual Property (IP) portfolio, premier design services, and Linux and Windows 2000 driver development support. VinChip Systems, the newest member of the Altera Megafunctions Partners Program (AMPP), will provide Altera customers with its USB 2.0 cores, which are ideally suited for high-speed devices such as routers, telecom switches, video cameras, digital cameras, printers, scanners, external CD-ROM, and hard disk drives.

"We are excited to join the Altera Megafunction Partners Program," said Krish Subramaniam, vice president of marketing at VinChip. "As an AMPP^SM partner, we will be working in tandem with Altera to provide customers leading-edge USB 2.0 cores optimized for programmable logic devices to be utilized in developing system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) solutions for the embedded market space."

"Our customers now have access to VinChip's extensive portfolio of USB IP cores allowing them to utilize programmable logic devices in embedded systems as well as in high-speed consumer end-products," said Craig Lytle, vice president of Altera's intellectual property business unit. "VinChip Systems will also provide Altera customers with dedicated engineering support."

The 480Mbits/sec bandwidth capability of the VinChip Systems USB 2.0 core supports high-speed applications in the embedded and communications market places. The USB cores are optimized for Altera's APEX[tm] 20K programmable logic device (PLD) family and are available immediately as Altera optimized encrypted netlists or as source code. The USB 2.0 device core utilizes approximately 2,300 logic elements (LEs) and achieves a performance of 30MHz. The licensing fee for the USB 2.0 device core for use in the APEX architecture is $30,000.

About VinChip Systems
VinChip Systems was founded to fill the design productivity gap brought about by advances in semiconductor manufacturing and reducing product life cycles. Now, OEMs are provided with an opportunity to design an entire system on a chip leading to reduced cost and increased reliability. But, they also face the prospect of designing products whose design and development cycle matches the products' life cycle and in some cases outstrip the life cycle.

VinChip recognized the role of silicon proven intellectual property cores and Design services in the current scenario and has brought in a team of design experts and domain experts with wide experience in developing solutions for Computing, Networking, Consumer electronics, Embedded systems, Avionics and Industrial systems.

VinChip's current focus is on developing IPs for USB, Infiniband and Bluetooth along with associated software stacks and provide design services. VinChip offers substantial cost savings to its customers by providing proven IPs and design services on-site, or at its design centers located in San Jose and India.

About Altera
Altera Corporation, The Programmable Solutions Company®, was founded in 1983 and is a leading supplier of programmable logic devices (PLDs). Altera's CMOS-based PLDs are user-programmable semiconductor chips that enhance flexibility and reduce time-to-market for companies in the communications, computer peripheral, and industrial markets. By using high performance devices, software development tools, and sophisticated intellectual property cores, system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) solutions can be created with embedded processors, memory, and other complex logic together on a single PLD. Altera common stock is traded on The Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol ALTR. More information on Altera is available on the Internet at http://www.altera.com.

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Editor Contacts:

Ami Dorrell
Altera Corporation
(408) 544-6879
adorrell@altera.com

Susannah Stanford
PR21
(415) 369-8105
susannah.stanford@pr21.com

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