Altera Announces Faster Speed Grades for ALL FLEX 10K Family Devices.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--September 16, 1996--Altera Corp. (NASDAQ:ALTR) today announced it is shipping faster speed grades of its FLEX 10K family of high-density programmable logic devices (PLDs). System performance over 100 MHz will be available in all FLEX 10K family devices, which offer 10,000 to 100,000 gates of programmable logic. Previously, the fastest FLEX 10K devices were offered in a -4 speed grade, which provided up to 80 MHz system performance. Through further process characterization and manufacturing improvements, Altera is now able to offer a -3 speed grade version of FLEX 10K, improving performance from 25 percent to 45 percent, depending upon the application.

"Performance is an important consideration to engineers working with gate array designs," said Cliff Tong, Altera's director of product marketing. "With the new speed levels in the FLEX 10K family, designers can integrate unprecedented amounts of logic on a single PLD without sacrificing performance."

Real-time digital signal processing (DSP) is one of the application areas where the FLEX 10K family has been adopted. Digital signal processing demands the highest performance and the FLEX 10K family's unique embedded array architecture provides high performance DSP system integration in a single device. Shown in Table 1 are some common DSP functions, and the new speed grades provide significant increases in performance, including 100 Megasamples per second (MSPS) performance for 16-tap finite impulse response (FIR) filters. -0-

Table 1:  FLEX 10K PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT

  Logic Implementation      Altera        Altera        Improvement
                         EPF10K100-4   EPF10K100-3

     FIR Filter            79 MSPS       101 MSPS           25%
   (8-bit, 16-Tap)

   8X8 Pipelined           88 MHz        125 MHz            42%
     Multiplier

   12x12 Pipelined         60 MHz         87 MHz            45%
     Multiplier

Availability

    The -3 speed grades of the FLEX 10K family are available now for
the EPF10K10, EPF10K30, and EPF10K100.  The -3 speed grades for the
EPF10K20 will be available in September, the EPF10K50 in October, and
the EPF10K40 and EPF10K70 in December.  Volume pricing for the -3
speed grades of the FLEX 10K family devices begins at $18.00, and
availability is as follows:

                Part Number            Availability

              EPF10K10TC144-3              Now
              EPF10K20RC208-3           September
              EPF10K30RC208-3              Now
              EPF10K40RC240-3           December
              EPF10K50RC240-3           October
              EPF10K70GC503-3           December
              EPF10K100GC503-3             Now

About Altera

Altera Corporation, founded in 1983, is a world-wide leader in high-performance, high-density programmable logic devices and associated computer aided engineering (CAE) logic development tools. Programmable logic devices are semiconductor chips that offer on-site programmability to customers. The chips are programmed using tools that run on personal computers or engineering workstations. User benefits include ease of use, lower risk, and fast time-to-market. The Company offers the broadest line of CMOS programmable logic devices that address high-speed, high-density, and lower power applications.

Altera products serve a broad range of markets, including telecommunications, data communications, computers, and industrial applications. Altera common stock is traded on The Nasdaq Stock market using the symbol ALTR. More information on Altera can be obtained on the World-Wide Web at http://www.altera.com. -0-

Note to Editors: Altera, FLEX, FLEX 10K, FLEX 8000, and specific device designations are trademarks and/or servicemarks of Altera Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

CONTACT: Altera Corp.

Robert K. Beachler/Cliff Tong, 408/894-7000

or

Cain Communications

Susan Cain, 408/291-2580