Altera Acquires IP Provider Hammercores, Inc.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 11, 1999--

Altera Corporation (Nasdaq:ALTR) today announced that it has acquired the privately-held company, Hammercores, Inc. (Maple, Ontario, Canada). Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The acquisition will not have a material effect on Altera's financial results.

Hammercores has been a member of the Premier Altera Megafunction Partners Program (AMPP(SM)). As a Premier AMPP partner, Hammercores contributed substantially to Altera's market-leading role in implementing digital signal processing (DSP) on board programmable logic devices (PLDs).

"Hammercores offered us an intellectual property (IP) core that was low-priced, while still offering superior flexibility and significantly higher performance as compared to other vendors' cores," said Ken Crandall, principle development engineer with Glenayre Western Multiplex (Sunnyvale, CA). "Hammercores worked closely with us to ensure speedy delivery of the IP core and helped with modifications so that it could easily be integrated into our next-generation applications."

"Altera is committed to the deployment of intellectual property for programmable logic devices, enabling true System-on-a-Programmable-Chip(TM) design," said Erik Cleage, Altera senior vice president of marketing. "The engineering development resulting from our acquisition of Hammercores will empower our customers to quickly and effectively implement digital signal processing designs in Altera devices."

About Hammercores

Hammercores, Inc. was founded in 1997 by Martin Langhammer, president. Hammercores is known in the programmable logic industry for fast, easy-to-use, complex DSP functions, including a variety of popular Reed-Solomon and Viterbi decoder solutions. Langhammer will join Altera, located in Altera's European Technology Center, in High Wycombe, United Kingdom. "Martin's knowledge of DSP is without peer in the programmable logic industry," noted Mark Dickinson, director, European Technology Center. "His background and his future contributions as Chief Scientist will serve Altera well as we expand our leadership role in the development and implementation of complex algorithms on PLDs."

"I am looking forward to joining Altera and continuing my work in the DSP field," said Martin Langhammer. "Altera's acquisition of Hammercores is a natural extension of our mutual desire to demonstrate to DSP designers the great potential of system-on-a-programmable-chip design."

The desire for DSP functionality in system-on-chip designs is growing rapidly, according to the market research firm, Forward Concepts (Tempe, Ariz.). "The ability to achieve the same functionality as a number of discrete DSP devices on-board a PLD allows the designer to reduce system footprint and substantially boost performance," stated Will Strauss, president, Forward Concepts. "This is an area of increasing interest among conventional DSP designers."

Safe Harbor Notice

This press release contains "forward looking statements" which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward looking statements are generally preceded by words such as "expects," "believes," "anticipates," "projects," or "intends." Investors are cautioned that all forward-looking statements in this release involve risks and uncertainty, including without limitation the risks that the Company's products will not satisfy customer demands and that other companies will develop products with greater functionality than those offered by the Company. Please refer to the Company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings, copies of which are available from the Company without charge, for further information.

About Altera

Altera Corporation, The Programmable Solutions Company(TM), was founded in 1983 and is a leading supplier of programmable logic devices and associated logic development software tools. Programmable logic devices are semiconductor chips that can be programmed on-site, using software tools that run on personal computers or engineering workstations. User benefits include ease of use, lower risk, and fast time-to-market. Altera's CMOS-based programmable logic devices address high-speed, high-density and low-power applications in the telecommunications, data communications, computer peripheral, and industrial markets. Altera common stock is traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol ALTR. More information on Altera can be obtained on the Internet at http://www.altera.com.

Altera, The Programmable Solutions Company, System-on-a-Programmable-Chip, AMPP, FLEX, and specific device designations are trademarks and/or service marks of Altera Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.