Altera Announces Nios Embedded Processor Development Kit for Stratix Devices

First in a Series of Nios Development Kits Built Around Altera's New Product Families

San Jose, Calif., February 19, 2003 -- Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) today announced the availability of the Nios® Development Kit, Stratix™ Edition, giving embedded designers a complete design platform to accelerate their high-bandwidth system designs. Featuring version 3.0 of the Nios embedded processor and the Stratix EP1S10 device, the new kit includes everything needed by hardware and software engineers to immediately begin development and dramatically accelerate their design flow. With more than 10,000 Nios embedded processor hardware development kits shipped worldwide, the new Stratix device kit builds on the huge success of the Nios embedded processor.

"The implementation of Nios processors in Stratix FPGAs offers a powerful processor and additional interface IP modules. This significantly increases the time available to develop new features in our products," said Jayne Hahin, senior product development engineer at Finisar Corporation. "The Stratix edition of the Nios Development Kit will allow us to accelerate our product development and reap the significant time-to-market benefits of Altera's solutions."

In addition to the Nios embedded processor and Stratix device-based development board, the kit includes the Quartus® II development software, SOPC Builder system development tool, and a complete suite of software development tools.

"The advanced architectural features of Stratix devices makes this kit an excellent platform for development targeting high-bandwidth applications," said Tim Southgate, vice president of software and tools marketing at Altera. "Because the kit includes world-class development tools and complete documentation, designers can be writing, compiling, building systems, and running software on their Nios development boards within minutes of opening the box."

The first in a series of Nios development kits targeted for specific device families, the Nios Development Kit, Stratix Edition includes a Stratix development board that features the Stratix EP1S10 device, 1Mb of SRAM, 16Mb of SDRAM, 8Mb of flash, a 10/100 Ethernet port, two serial ports, a Mictor connector for software debug, two expansion headers, power supply, and download cable. Reference designs preloaded in on-board flash memory and complete hardware and software tutorials dramatically reduce the learning curve, where designers can complete their first design in less than one day. Details on future Nios development kits, including the upcoming Cyclone™ Edition, and Stratix Professional Edition are available on the Altera® web site at www.altera.com/devkits.

Third-Party Tools
The Stratix Edition kit supports a complete set of software development tools from Accelerated Technology, including the Nucleus real-time operating system (RTOS) and the code|lab™ Developer Suite. The code|lab software features native support for First Silicon Solutions' (FS2) BlackBox® debug probe and support for Altera's ByteBlaster MV™ download cable for software debug. Details on the Nucleus RTOS and the code|lab Developer Suite can be found at www.acceleratedtechnology.com.

Also included is an evaluation version of the IAR visualSTATE development software, featuring a graphical state machine diagramming tool that generates a C model of the user's state machine to dramatically accelerate software generation. More details about visualSTATE can be found at www.iar.com/visualstate.

Pricing and Availability
The Nios Development Kit, Stratix Edition, is available for $995 from Altera, authorized Altera distributors, and on the Altera web site at buy.altera.com. The Accelerated Technology code|lab Developer Suite, Nucleus RTOS, and FS2 BlackBox debug probe are available now from Accelerated Technology and First Silicon Solutions.

About the Nios Embedded Processor
Altera's Nios soft-core embedded processor is optimized for programmable logic and system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) integration. The Nios core is a general-purpose RISC processor that can be combined with user logic and programmed into an Altera FPGA. The processor features a 16-bit instruction set and user-selectable 16- or 32-bit data paths, configurable for a wide range of applications. The Nios embedded processor is royalty free when used in Altera PLDs and HardCopy™ devices. An ASIC license for OEM applications is available for an additional charge. For more information, visit www.altera.com/nios.

About Stratix Devices
Stratix devices are based on a 1.5-V, 0.13-micron 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 digital signal processing (DSP) blocks with up to 224 embedded multipliers, optimized for DSP applications that require intensive data processing. Stratix devices support various differential I/O electrical standards such as the LVDS, LVPECL, PCML, and HyperTransport™ standards as well as high-speed interfaces including the UTOPIA IV, SPI-4 Phase 2, SFI-4, 10G Ethernet XSBI, RapidIO™, HyperTransport, and other interfaces. Stratix devices also offer a complete clock management solution with their hierarchical clock structure and up to 12 phase-locked loops (PLLs). For more information about the Stratix device family, visit http://www.altera.com/stratix.

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.

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. HyperTransport is a trademark of the HyperTransport Consortium. RapidIO is a trademark of the RapidIO Trade Association. All other product or service names are the property of their respective holder.