Altera and MorethanIP Announce Industry’s First Fibre Channel IP Cores For FPGAs

San Jose, Calif., and Karlsfeld, Germany, September 3, 2003 - Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) and MorethanIP today announced the immediate availability of the industry’s first Fibre Channel intellectual property (IP) cores for FPGAs.  As an Altera Megafunction Partner Program (AMPPSM) member, MorethanIP’s Fibre Channel IP cores are optimized for Altera’s Stratix™, Stratix GX, Cyclone™, and Hardcopy™ devices to provide a compelling solution for storage, telecommunications, and broadcast applications.  When implemented in an Altera Cyclone device, MorethanIP’s Fibre Channel IP cores provide a flexible, low-cost solution compared to existing ASSP solutions on the market.

“Altera leveraged MorethanIP’s successful track record developing Ethernet IP cores to create powerful Fiber Channel IP cores,” said Craig Lytle, vice president of the intellectual property business unit at Altera.  “Our customers now have all the necessary tools—including industry-leading development tools and FPGAs—to build their Fibre Channel applications.”

MorethanIP’s initial offering of Fibre Channel IP cores include the 1Gigabit/2Gigabit Fibre Channel Transport core, the 1Gigabit/2Gigabit Fibre Channel Transport with Avalon™ interface, and Fibre Channel B_PORT controller core.  The programmable 1G/2G Fibre Channel Transport IP core implements Fibre Channel lower PHY layer and MAC layer functions such as line coding, CRC check and calculation, primitive generation and decoding, and credit based flow control.  This core also includes FIFOs and Altera’s Atlantic™ interface to simplify system design and integration of third-party cores.  The transport core interfaces industry standard SERDES devices with a 10-Bit or a 20-Bit interface.  For higher integration, the transport core can be implemented in Altera’s Stratix GX devices eliminating the need of an external SERDES device.

“Altera’s FPGAs provide the ideal platform for high-performance Fibre Channel applications,” said Francois Balay, CEO of MorethanIP.  “Altera’s Cyclone FPGAs provide a much lower-priced solution compared to existing solutions without trading off features and performance.”

MorethanIP’s Fibre Channel Transport core with Avalon interface is SOPC Builder™ ready, which allows designers to quickly combine system-level components such as embedded processors, memories, peripherals, and user-created IP blocks to create their own custom system-on-a-programmable-chip solution.  By combining the MorethanIP Fibre Channel Transport core with a Nios® processor, and a system interface such as PCI, PCI-X or POS-PHY, a designer has a flexible, low-cost solution that provides enough free space for a customer custom logic.  With specific software, the controller fits in Fibre Channel N_PORT, E_PORT or F_PORT applications.

In addition, MorethanIP provides a Fibre Channel B_PORT controller core, which eliminates the need for software overhead, typically required with existing solutions.  This core is ideal for Fibre Channel bridging applications including Fibre Channel over SONET or Fibre Channel over Ethernet applications.

Pricing and Availability
These cores are available now from MorethanIP.  Pricing for the 1G/2G Fibre Channel Transport IP core starts at $30,000 for an optimized Altera netlist.  For more information and a complete list of Altera’s MegaCore® logic functions and Altera AMPP intellectual property functions, visit the Altera IP MegaStore™ web site at www.altera.com/IPmegastore.

About MorethanIP’s Fibre Channel IP Cores
The new IP cores are delivered with the MorethanIP user-friendly configuration graphical user interface, through which designers can easily eliminate features that are not required, reducing unit costs and simplifying the software integration.  MorethanIP supplies the Fibre Channel cores with the ability to do functional simulation using an industry standard VHDL or Verilog simulator or synthesis tool as well as place-and-route and static timing analysis using Altera’s Quartus® II development software. 

MorethanIP Fibre Channel Cores provides a unique solution for SAN (Storage Area Networks) or Telecom applications and MorethanIP Fibre Channel roadmap includes solution for 4 Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Fibre Channel applications. 

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 embedded systems. 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 www.morethanip.com.

About Altera
Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, 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 www.altera.com.