Altera and MJL Technology Announce Cyclone Development Kit for Low-Cost, High-Volume Applications

San Jose, Calif., March 25, 2003--Following on the heels of the highly successful MJL Stratix™ Development Kit, Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) and MJL Technology, Ltd. today announced the immediate availability of the MJL Cyclone™ Development Kit, the first in a series of development kits based on Altera's low-cost Cyclone FPGA family. The MJL Cyclone Development Kit provides designers with a comprehensive platform for designing, prototyping, and debugging high-volume, cost sensitive systems using the Cyclone device family.

Like the MJL Stratix Development Kit released in December, the comprehensive Cyclone Development Kit includes a powerful development board, Quartus® II Web Edition design software, and several system reference designs, giving customers the ability to quickly and easily design and prototype their applications.

"MJL's Cyclone Development Kit is an excellent addition to Altera's development kit program," said Tim Southgate, Altera's vice president of software and tools marketing. "The new kit raises the level of development support for a wide variety of high-volume, cost-sensitive applications."

With up to four times the density of previous low-cost FPGA families and volume prices at less than $1.50 per 1,000 logic elements (LEs), Cyclone FPGAs are the optimal solution for high-volume, price-sensitive applications that previously required the use of fixed solutions such as gate arrays and standard cells. Built on TSMC's proven all-copper, 0.13-micron process technology, the Cyclone device family is the industry's lowest cost FPGA family shipping today. To date, Altera is the only FPGA vendor shipping production-grade devices on the 0.13-micron process technology.

"Cyclone devices have changed the rules for FPGAs in terms of price and performance. This device allows designers to use FPGAs for volume production in applications such as consumer, industrial, and computer peripherals," said James Lim, chief operating officer and director of R&D at MJL Technology. "With the MJL Cyclone Development Kit, we can deliver an easy-to-use development platform to our customers as well as leverage the benefits of FPGAs at ASIC-competitive pricing, giving designers a solution that takes their designs into production as efficiently as possible."

MJL and Altera plan to work together on additional Cyclone developments kits that will target specific market segments such as automotive, industrial, and storage.

Pricing and Availability

The MJL Cyclone Development Kit (ordering code: MJL-CYCL1C20-1) is available immediately from MJL, and is priced at $695. For information about this product and purchasing, visit www.mjl.com/devkit.

About the Cyclone Device Family

Cyclone devices are the industry's lowest-cost FPGAs. With densities ranging from 2,910 to 20,060 LEs, Cyclone devices feature up to 288 Kbits of embedded memory and are based on a 1.5-V all-layer copper SRAM process. Cyclone devices offer up to two phase-locked loops (PLLs) per device and a hierarchical clocking structure for extensive on- and off-chip clock management. For more information about the Cyclone device family, visit www.altera.com/cyclone.

About MJL Technology, Ltd.

Dr. Mahn-Jick Lim, CEO and president, founded MJL Technology in 1988. MJL's mission is to develop the most reliable, high technology products for the worldwide market, and to provide advanced information technology solutions to enterprise and carrier customers. MJL's headquarters and R&D Center are located in Seoul, Korea, and US-based operations are run from MJL America, a wholly owned subsidiary of MJL Technology. Based on robust technology and business expertise, MJL has sustained a fast growth rate of approximately 30 to 50 percent per year over most of the last decade. For more information, please visit the company's web site at www.mjl.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 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. All other product or service names are the property of their respective holder.