MorethanIP 10 Gigabit Ethernet Solution Now Available for Altera PLDs

Germany-Based IP Design House Joins Altera's AMPP^SM Program

Munich, Germany and San Jose, Calif., February 26, 2002 -- MorethanIP and Altera Corporation (Nasdaq: ALTR) today announced the immediate availability of a 10 Gigabit Ethernet Medium Access Controller (MAC) solution for programmable logic devices (PLDs). As an Altera Megafunction Partner Program (AMPP^SM) member, MorethanIP will provide high-speed communication cores that enhance Altera's APEX^™ II and Stratix^™ devices making them ideal for applications such as core, backbone or workgroup switches, transport ADM (Add-Drop Multiplexer) and test equipment.

"Due to their density, advanced I/O, systems features, and cost-effective HardCopy^™ solution, Altera's devices provide an ideal platform for high-speed Ethernet application development," said Francois Balay, director at MorethanIP. "The combined 10 Gigabit Ethernet MAC solution meets all the stringent IEEE 803.3ae specifications at any density, and leaves enough logic to implement complex user applications.

"Altera's industry-leading PLDs and MorethanIP's expertise and wide range of solutions in the field of Ethernet technology is an ideal combination," said Craig Lytle, vice president of Altera's intellectual property business unit. "This partnership provides benefits for the system developers, including lower development costs, design flexibility, and rapid time-to-market."

MoreThanIP 10 Gigabit Ethernet MAC Core

MorethanIP's 10 Gigabit Ethernet MAC core implements the Reconciliation Sub-Layer, the MAC layer and User programmable FIFOs for clock and data decoupling. The core implements advanced system level features such as automatic Pause Frame generation (per IEEE 802.3 x31) with user-programmable pause quanta, and pause-frame termination. The core supports a programmable 48-Bit MAC address with a Promiscuous mode option, and a programmable Ethernet frame length which supports IEEE 802.1Q VLAN-tagged frames or Jumbo Ethernet frames. In addition, the core provides support for broadcast traffic and multicast address resolution with a 64-Entry Hash table. The core is fully compliant with the IEEE802.3ae Draft 4.0, and MorethanIP has committed to follow the IEEE specification as it evolves.

The core implements the XGMII (10 Gigabit Medium Independent Interface), which allows it to interface to XAUI (10 Gigabit Attachment Unit Interface) devices such as XENPACK modules, via a 10-Gigabit commercial SERDES (SERializer DESerializer). The MorethanIP 10 Gigabit Ethernet MAC solution is available now and pricing starts at $30,000 for a single use encrypted APEX II device netlist.

About APEX II Devices

The APEX II devices are Altera's high-performance, high-density PLD family for SOPC applications. Building on the successful APEX architecture, the APEX II device family marks a breakthrough in capability and system performance that place programmable logic directly in the datapath of high-performance communication applications. The APEX II architecture also provides up to 1.1 Mbits of internal memory creating an excellent solution for memory-intensive applications, such as packet processing. Additional details on the APEX II device family can be found at http://www.altera.com/products/devices/apex2/ap2-index.html.

About Stratix Devices

Stratix devices are based on a 1.5-V, 0.13-µm, all-layer copper SRAM process, with densities ranging from 10,570 to 114,140 logic elements (LEs) and up to 10 Mbits of RAM. Stratix devices offer up to 28 DSP blocks with up to 224 embedded multipliers, optimized for DSP applications that require high data processing. Stratix devices support various differential I/O electrical standards such as LVDS, LVPECL, PCML, and HyperTransport^™, as well as high-speed interfaces, including UTOPIA IV, SPI-4 Phase 2, SFI-4, 10G Ethernet XSBI, RapidIO^™, HyperTransport, and others. Stratix devices also offer a complete clock management solution with its hierarchical clock structure and up to 12 phase-locked loops (PLLs). More technical information about the Stratix device family is available at http://www.altera.com/stratix.

About MorethanIP

MorethanIP was founded 1999 as a GmbH (Ltd.) in Munich Germany and is an IP and design house concentrating on high-speed communications and DSP technologies. This includes design specification and implementation of standard products, system architectures and customer specific solutions. For more information on the company and its products, please email info@morethanip.com or visit the company's website at http://www.morethanip.com.

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 http://www.altera.com. ###

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Editor Contacts: 

Ami Dorrell Altera Corporation (408) 544-6397  newsroom@altera.com

Francois Balay MorethanIP GmbH +49 89 3219599-0 fbalay@morethanip.com