Altera Strengthens Support of High-Speed Application Development With Shipment of Stratix II GX FPGAs

Stratix II GX FPGAs and Stratix II GX Signal Integrity Development Kit Now Available for Ordering

San Jose, Calif., March 28, 2006—Continuing to provide developers of high-speed applications with an efficient, low-risk design path, Altera Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR) today announced that it has begun shipping its Stratix^® II GX EP2SGX90E device and accompanying development kit. Featuring 12 transceivers and 90,960 equivalent logic elements (LEs), the EP2SGX90E device is the first member of the Stratix II GX FPGA family to ship to customers.

“Our EP2SGX90E FPGAs provide high-speed designers with an award-winning 90-nm device with embedded transceivers,” said David Greenfield, Altera’s senior director of product marketing for high-density FPGAs. “Altera is the first in the industry to deliver the port density, transceiver speed and optimized jitter performance that the Stratix II GX family offers. Our rigorous methodology of building test chips and using stable fabrication processes and device models enables us to continue our track record of early or on-time delivery of our 90-nm FPGA families.”

Development Kit Simplifies and Accelerates Customer Design Process

The Stratix II GX signal integrity development kit is the ideal platform for evaluating and validating the signal integrity features of the 6.375-Gbps transceivers. This development kit provides everything necessary for the validation of high-speed backplane interface, chip-to-chip and communications protocol-bridging applications. It includes configuration options, flexible clocking options and a USB port to interface with a PC for easy plug-and-play. The kit, available for $1,295, also includes Quartus^® II design software, an AC adaptor power supply, a USB-Blaster^TM download cable, two SMA-compatible cables, reference designs and documentation. For more information about the kit, visit www.altera.com/products/devkits/altera/kit-signal_integrity_s2gx.html.

About Stratix II GX FPGAs

Designed to meet the need for low power and superior signal integrity for high-speed designs, the Stratix II GX family is Altera’s third-generation of FPGAs with embedded transceivers. With up to 20 low-power transceivers operating between 622 Mbps and 6.375 Gbps, Stratix II GX FPGAs offer a complete, programmable solution for the growing number of applications and protocols requiring high-speed serial transceivers. Protocols include PCI Express, Serial Digital Interface (SDI), XAUI, SONET, Gigabit Ethernet, SerialLite II, Serial RapidIO^TMand Common Electrical Interface 6-Gbps Long Reach and Short Reach (CEI-6G-LR/SR). The Stratix II GX family was awarded Product of the Year 2005 by analogZONE for “Best Connectivity PHY”.

Availability

In addition to the EP2SGX90E device shipping now, the EP2SGX90F device—featuring 16 full-duplex high-speed transceivers—begins shipping next month. All members of the Stratix II GX family are planned to be in full production by the fourth quarter of 2006. For more information about Stratix II GX devices, visit www.altera.com/stratix2gx.

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 over 14,000 customers worldwide. More information is available at www.altera.com.