Altera Now Shipping World's Biggest FPGA

SAN JOSE, Calif., Nov. 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) today announced that it is now shipping the 90-nm Stratix(R) II EP2S130 device, the world's biggest FPGA. The EP2S130 device establishes Altera as the FPGA industry's density leader with 132,540 equivalent logic elements (LEs) that make it more than 50 percent bigger than any other FPGA shipping today.

Altera delivered the industry's first high-density FPGAs built using the 90-nm process with high-performance, low-k dielectric materials. Benchmarks using a methodology endorsed by industry experts demonstrate that the Stratix II family is on average 39 percent faster than Xilinx's Virtex-4 devices, the nearest competitive FPGA family.

"The high density and superior performance of the Stratix II family make it the best programmable logic choice for today's complex system designs," said David Greenfield, senior director of marketing for high-density FPGA products at Altera Corporation. "The EP2S130 device will enable Altera to expand its market and, in combination with the HardCopy(R) product family, displace ASICs in high-density, high-performance applications."

"We require the highest level of integration for the development of our wireless digital transmission products," said Dinesh Venkatachalam, vice president of engineering at Legend Silicon. "Altera's Stratix II family includes the largest FPGAs available in the market, and the family architecture offers an excellent mix of DSP and memory resources. We look forward to leveraging these benefits using the EP2S130 devices we have received."

Availability

With the introduction of the EP2S130 FPGAs, two members of the Stratix II family are shipping to customers, including EP2S60 devices which began shipping in June. The largest Stratix II device, the EP2S180 device, will ship in Q1 2005. All members of the Stratix II family will be in full production in the first half of 2005.

About Stratix II Devices

Featuring an innovative logic structure, Stratix II devices offer over twice the logic density and 50 percent higher performance at 40 percent lower cost than first-generation Stratix devices. Stratix II devices provide 50 percent more logic density and are on average 39 percent faster than any available competitive FPGA. The new logic structure allows designers to conserve device resources by packing more functionality into a smaller area. Migration to HardCopy structured ASICs provides additional cost savings of up to 90 percent. For more information about Stratix II devices, please visit http://www.altera.com/stratix2.

About Altera

Altera Corporation 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 http://www.altera.com/.

Safe Harbor

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" that are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are generally preceded by words that imply a future state such as "expected" or that imply that a particular future event or events will occur such as "will." Investors are cautioned that all forward-looking statements in this release involve risks and uncertainty, including without limitation the risk that future performance is dependent on product development schedules, the design performance of software and other tools, as well as the company's and third parties' development technology and manufacture capabilities. Please refer to the company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings, copies of which are available from the company without charge.

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      Editor Contact:
      Bruce Fienberg
      Altera Corporation
      408-544-6397
      newsroom@altera.com

CONTACT: Bruce Fienberg of Altera Corporation, +1-408-544-6397, or
newsroom@altera.com

Web site: http://www.altera.com/