Altera Extends Product-Term Leadership With Complete Support for IEEE 1532 Specification

Altera Leads The Way With IEEE 1532 Compliant Silicon Plus Full Software Support For New Standard

San Jose, Calif., December 7, 2001--Altera Corporation (Nasdaq: ALTR) today announced complete silicon and software support for the recently approved IEEE 1532 programming specification. This provides customers with a common platform for production level programming of product-term programmable logic devices (PLDs).

Altera was the first PLD supplier to ship IEEE 1532-compliant devices, and was a major participant in the development and approval of this specification. The standard consists of two parts; a silicon component that was approved in September 2000, and associated device file format that was just recently approved by the IEEE.

"By providing the necessary IEEE 1532 software files for their products, Altera is playing a key role in the implementation of this standard, " said Doug Way, test engineer at Alcatel Canada. "Alcatel will benefit from simpler programming development and faster programming times that this standard provides. "

"Altera is a key proponent of the IEEE 1532 standard and has contributed to its definition," said Venkatesh Shan, senior director of marketing, MAX^® products at Altera. "Our leading-edge product-term devices - the MAX 7000B, MAX 7000AE and MAX 3000A devices- fully support this programming standard."

The new standard allows customers to concurrently program during the manufacturing stage all compliant product-term devices and configuration memory devices from multiple vendors. The standard enables common system operation for all PLDs on a board. To obtain the official IEEE 1532 specification, select IEEE standard 1532 from http://shop.ieee.org/store/.

Files necessary for IEEE 1532 compliance are available today from Altera. Version 2.0 of the Quartus^® II development software will provide full support for this standard.

"We commend Altera's commitment in bringing this standard to fruition, " said Peter van den Eijnden, managing director of JTAG Technologies. "With 1532 support for Altera's 1532-compliant devices already tested, JTAG Technologies looks forward to releasing products supporting this capability."

About IEEE 1532

The IEEE 1532 specification enables concurrent in-system programming of multiple devices, in minimum time. By specifying a common software platform for programming variety of device types, including memory devices and PLDs, this standard enables common system operation for all devices on a board.

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.

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. ARM is a registered trademark of ARM Limited. All other product or service names are the property of their respective holders.

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