Actel’s Protocol Design Services Group Selects HelloSoft’s Wireless LAN IP

Licensing Agreement includes 802.11 b Baseband & MAC implementations for DSP and FPGA platforms

SAN JOSE, Calif. – December 4, 2003 – HelloSoft, Inc., a leading provider of communication Intellectual Property (IP), today announced licensing of its HelloWLAN™ IEEE 802.11 b ‘designer-tailored’ IP to Actel Corporation’s (Nasdaq: ACTL) Protocol Design Services Group, a leading supplier of hardware and software design services to companies throughout the world. 

The HelloWLAN™ Solution consists of the complete PHY and MAC for the IEEE 802.11-series Wireless LAN standards including security, and is available as ‘designer-tailored’ licensable IP for semiconductor vendors and OEMs. The solution is unique in that it is fully customizable, allowing developers to specify the hardware/software partitioning for their specific target platform to optimally leverage existing resources and to minimize additional hardware costs.

The agreement with Actel includes licensing of real-time Software & RTL implementations of the HelloWLAN™ IEEE 802.11 b PHY and MAC. “HelloSoft’s comprehensive suite of Wireless LAN IP, available in various formats, allowed us to select our optimal configuration and customize the 802.11 protocol to meet our requirements for the development of custom wireless designs for our customers,” said Tony Farinaro, Vice President and GM of the Protocol Design Services Group. “After evaluating numerous competitive offerings in the marketplace, we selected the HelloSoft solution because it provided us the required flexibility for our design.”

“Actel’s confidence in HelloSoft’s IP reinforces our belief that we have the most robust, feature-rich customizable 802.11 solution in the market,” stated Krishna Yarlagadda, President and CEO, HelloSoft. “We are particularly proud to be able to add Actel to our ever-growing list of customers, and this continues our strategy of supplying technology to the world’s leading silicon companies.”

The Protocol Design Services Group, Actel Corporation's premier services organization, has a successful fourteen year history of providing hardware and software design services to customers throughout the world. Protocol’s focus is on enabling customers to “turn their ideas into products.” The design service offerings include turn-key FPGA, ASIC, IP, software, electronic circuit board and system design. For more information, visit http://www.actel.com/products/services/protocol.html or call 1-800-453-4035 or 973-770-4700.

About HelloSoft
HelloSoft licenses customizable Physical Layer and Networking Protocol IP to semiconductor companies and OEMs for Voice-Over-Packet, Wireless LAN, and 2.5G/3G Wireless. HelloSoft’s solutions are provided as a suite of integrated products that include DSP software, Networking software, RTL, a complete reference design and design services to customize these solutions to customer needs. Through this total solutions approach and strategy of offering Software and Hardware IP and engineering services, HelloSoft allows companies to acquire "off-the-shelf" technology that can accelerate new product development in an industry that is driven by complexity, change and innovation. For more information visit www.hellosoft.com.

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