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For Release: February 28, 2000
Altera Expands European Operations
- Increased R&D Investments at the European Technology Center
- Strong European Customer Growth Driving Altera's Expansion
- Providing Customers in the Communications Industry with State-of-the-Art Tools, Products, and Technical Support
San Jose, Calif., February 28, 2000--Altera Corporation (Nasdaq: ALTR) today announced further expansion of its European Technology Center (ETC). Originally established two years ago, the ETC is chartered to execute research and development activities focused on chip design, software development, and the development of intellectual property (IP). The ETC, based in the Altera facilities near London, England, also provides local technical support to Altera's European customers. As a regionally based unit, one of the objectives of the ETC is to anticipate the needs of Altera's European customers and satisfy those needs within Europe through advanced product development and local technical support. The initial plan was to recruit 20 engineers by the end of 1999; there are currently almost 40 with an expectation of 70 employees by the end of 2000.
The ETC has successfully recruited top-flight technical talent from throughout Europe including England, France, Germany, Greece, Russia, and Spain. More recently, Altera acquired HammerCores Inc., a leading DSP IP company. Martin Langhammer, HammerCores president and founder, joined the ETC in the role of chief scientist, and brings extensive knowledge and experience in implementing digital signal processing (DSP) within programmable logic devices (PLDs).
"Martin's expertise in DSP is without peer in the programmable logic industry," noted Mark Dickinson, director, European Technology Center. "The resulting engineering effort has empowered our customers to quickly and effectively implement digital signal processing designs in Altera PLDs."
European Technology Center's Key R&D Achievements
In just 18 months since the initial employees were on board, the ETC has accomplished key R&D achievements, which have delivered significant results. The IC Design group taped out devices for both the FLEX® and APEX™ families, increasing Altera's overall design capacity. The IP group released a significant number of communications cores including UTOPIA Level 2 Master and Slave functions and Reed-Solomon functions, both with MegaWizard™ Plug-in technology. In addition, the group has developed the world's first commercial, parameterizable turbo decoder for programmable logic (see related announcement: Altera Expands DSP Leadership with Nine New Error Correction Cores for Communications Systems). Within the software development group, major enhancements have been achieved for MAX+PLUS® II development software, which have significantly shortened compile times. The ETC continues to work with Altera's tool suites to improve design performance and functionality.
Further European Expansion
In addition to the continued growth of the ETC, Altera is expanding other operations throughout Europe, which contribute to achieving this year's goal of 60 percent growth in headcount. Improved customer support is also being established through the growing number of sales offices and with the opening of an Applications Engineering Group at the European Headquarters, in the UK. The resources in this group include engineering specialists, sophisticated laboratory equipment, and a range of EDA hardware platforms, to be used in assisting customers in system-level design.
Altera's expansion has resulted in the doubling of its floor-space at the European Headquarters. The success in recruitment so far, coupled with the high quality of the results achieved by the different groups, means that further expansion will be driven by Altera's ability to find quality employees. Nigel Toon, vice president and managing director of Europe commented, "Programmable logic is a hot area. Many former ASIC users are realizing the benefits of the time-to-market and flexibility we offer, and see the very bright future of the industry. They are interested in working with a leading company in this field, and our expansion may therefore proceed even more rapidly than currently expected."
About Altera Corporation
Altera Corporation, The Programmable Solutions CompanyTM, was founded in 1983 and is a leading supplier of programmable logic devices and associated logic development software tools. Programmable logic devices are semiconductor chips that can be programmed on-site, using software tools that run on personal computers or engineering workstations. User benefits include ease of use, lower risk, and fast time-to-market. Altera's CMOS-based programmable logic devices address high-speed, high-density and low-power applications in the telecommunications, data communications, computer peripheral, and industrial markets. Altera common stock is traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol ALTR. More information on Altera can be obtained on the Internet at http://www.altera.com.
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