Actel Achieves Key Milestone with its Cost-Effective, Flash- Based FPGAs; Company Ships More Than 1 Million Units

Rapid, Mainstream Adoption Attributed to the Combination of ASIC-like Features and Reprogrammability the ProASIC^PLUS Family Offers to the Value-based Market

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 29, 2004 - Actel Corporation today announced it has shipped the one-millionth unit of its successful flash-based ProASIC^PLUS field-programmable gate array (FPGA) family. The milestone shipment is significant for Actel because the cost-effective ProASIC^PLUS family, which was introduced just two years ago, now holds the distinction of having the largest installed base of any flash-based FPGA solution. Further, with well over 1,000 design starts worldwide, this product has the fastest customer acceptance rate in Actel's history, providing additional evidence that customers are recognizing that the unique combination of nonvolatility and reprogrammability of these single-chip devices, coupled with their firm-error immunity, low power and inherent security, make them a cost-effective solution for the value-based FPGA market. Together, these achievements demonstrate the widespread adoption of nonvolatile, flash-based FPGAs as competitive alternatives to application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and SRAM-based FPGAs in mainstream applications across a variety of new and existing end markets, such as automotive, consumer, industrial and aerospace.

According to Gartner Dataquest, only 37 percent of FPGAs are used for ASIC prototyping, which represents a shift from traditional usage models. Nonrecurring engineering (NRE) costs are skyrocketing for ASICs, making these devices cost prohibitive for all but the highest volume users. And, unlike competitive offerings, the single-chip, live at power-up ProASIC^PLUS FPGAs require no external configuration memory or microcontroller, delivering a significant reduction in total system cost. As a result, Actel is seeing substantial market growth for its nonvolatile, ASIC-like, flash-based FPGAs that deliver unprecedented design flexibility at the industry's lowest total system cost.

"Early on, Actel recognized the huge opportunity to meet the needs of designers looking for a flexible, nonvolatile, ASIC-like design solution, and we made a significant investment in flash technology development as an alternative to ASICs and SRAM-based FPGA solutions," said John East, president and CEO of Actel. "The result has been an immensely successful line of cost-effective, flash-based FPGA products that offer designers a 'best-of-both-worlds' scenario. And, as these product milestones demonstrate, we are beginning to reap the rewards from this investment."

Making inroads into all market segments, flash-based FPGAs have been selected for more than 1,000 design starts worldwide, across a broad spectrum of applications. Consumer product suppliers value the cost-effectiveness of a single-chip solution, and the low-power consumption characteristic of flash technology is imperative in power-sensitive hand-held applications. Customers in military and industrial segments often require the firm-error immunity also associated with flash-based devices, while communications, industrial and consumer product vendors value the inherent security features offered by flash-based FPGAs.

About the ProASIC^PLUS Family

The ProASIC^PLUS family, Actel's second-generation of flash-based FPGAs, consists of seven devices ranging from 75,000 to 1-million system gates. The combination of a fine-grained, single-chip ASIC-like architecture and nonvolatile flash configuration memory makes Actel's ProASIC^PLUS offering a strong ASIC alternative. The devices are live at power-up, low power, highly secure and require no separate configuration memory, all characteristics shared by ASICs. Key features of the family include multiple phased-locked loops (PLLs), support for up to 198k bits of two-port embedded SRAM and 712 user-configurable I/Os, and improved in-system programmability (ISP).

About Actel

Actel Corporation is a supplier of innovative programmable logic solutions, including field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) based on antifuse and flash technologies, high-performance intellectual property (IP) cores, software development tools and design services, targeted for the high-speed communications, application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) replacement and radiation-tolerant markets. Founded in 1985, Actel employs more than 500 people worldwide. The Company is traded on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol ACTL and is headquartered at 2061 Stierlin Court, Mountain View, CA, 94043-4655. Telephone: 888-99-ACTEL (992-2835). Internet: http://www.actel.com.

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