Actel Ships First Radiation Hardened FPGAs; Targets Global Telecommunications, Commercial Satellite Markets.

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 24, 1996--Actel Corp. (NASDAQ:ACTL) today announced the availability of the first radiation-hardened, non-volatile, field programmable gate array (FPGA), the RH1280, with 8,000 gates, specially designed for use in the growing telecommunications satellite market.

Early next year, Actel will also introduce a 2,000 gate version, the RH1020.

The new Rad Hard FPGAs provide the capacity, performance and radiation survivability required for the growing commercial satellite market, which support such widely used telecommunications applications as cellular phones, pagers and Global Positioning Systems (GPS).

According to the Commercial Satellite Advisory Committee (COMSTAC), there will be 30 satellite launches per year over the next five years, indicating a definite market for the use of Rad Hard FPGAs. Additional applications for Rad Hard FPGAs include satellites for military use, deep space probes and planetary missions, and ground-based military applications where radiation survivability is is required.

"Rad Hard antifuse FPGAs are an ideal device for satellite use," said Mike Sarpa, product line manager at Actel. "Rad Hard versions of Actel's FPGAs will provide commercial and military satellite designers with specific advantages, including design flexibility, short time-to-launch, and low risk designs, which lead designers to choose FPGAs in favor of ASICs or discrete logic implementations."

Short time-to-launch is easily achieved by Rad Hard FPGAs since they are field programmable at the customer location, providing the flexibility to make design changes up until the last minute. This compares to custom mask-programmed ASIC devices, where the design must be completed approximately six months in advance, with no changes allowed without incurring additional costs.

Based on Actel's antifuse architecture, these FPGAs will survive exposure to a maximum total dose of 300KRAD (Si), with guaranteed latch-up immunity and low single-event upset (SEU) susceptibility.

"FPGAs give designers a relatively inexpensive, flexible alternative to semi-custom ASICs and significantly reduce the size of their space flight hardware," said Richard Katz, design engineer for NASA. "The Actel RH1280 FPGA provides good performance for missions requiring high reliability and the capability to withstand a moderate-to-high total ionizing dose (TID)."

Actel Rad Hard FPGAs are manufactured by Lockheed Martin Federal Systems (LMFS), formerly Loral Federal Systems - Manassas, at its Qualified Manufacturers Listing (QML) facility in Manassas, Va.

Committed to supporting all aspects of the military market, Actel provides military devices for three of its current product families: ACT 1, ACT 2, ACT 3. Devices are offered pre-tested to either the Commercial or Military temperature ranges, as well as full MIL-STD-883 compliant. Additionally, Actel will be introducing new military grade devices in the 1200XL and 3200DX families within the year.

Software support

The RH1280 device is supported by Actel's Designer Series development tools with improved ACTmap VHDL synthesis, DirectTime place and route, fully deterministic and controllable timing, and easy design reuse.

The devices are also supported by a variety of leading third-party software packages, including Synopsys' Design Compiler/FPGA Compiler, Mentor Graphics' Autologic, Exemplar Logic's Galileo, Cadence's Synergy, Minc-IST's ASYL, Viewlogic's ViewSynthesis and Synplicity's Synplify synthesis tools.

Pricing and Availability

The RH1280 is available now in a 172-pin Ceramic Quad Flat Pack (CQFP) package. The 2,000-gate RH1020 is expected to be available in the first quarter of 1997 in an 84-pin CQFP package. Both devices are pin-for-pin compatible with commercial devices to allow for inexpensive prototyping.

About Actel

Actel Corp. is dedicated to providing logic designers the capability and confidence to move up to higher complexity designs. Actel is the world's leading manufacturer of antifuse-based field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and associated software development tools.

Actel's cost effective, antifuse architecture offers designers advantages in total system performance, maximum gate utilization and high level design efficiencies, all resulting in lower development costs and faster times to market. FPGAs are used in voice and data communications, computing, medical, industrial controls and military and aerospace applications worldwide.

Actel is traded on the NASDAQ market using the symbol ACTL and is located at 955 East Arques Ave., Sunnyvale, CA 94086. Telephone: [phone]. Internet: http://www.actel.com.

CONTACT: Actel Corp.

Mike Sarpa, 408/739-1010 (reader contact)

Chuck Byers, 408/739-1010 (media contact)

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Walt & Company

Erin Curtis or Kellie DiNaro, 408/496-0900

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