Aplus Announces Physical Synthesis Support for Altera's Stratix and Cyclone Devices.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 3, 2003

Aplus Design Technologies, Inc., the leader of automated physical synthesis solutions for programmable logic devices, today announced an extension of physical synthesis support to include Altera Corporation's Stratix(TM) and Cyclone(TM) FPGA families. Through tight integration with Altera's Quartus(R) II version 2.2 design software, PALACE provides Altera customers with an easy-to-use solution that fits into any existing FPGA design flow and includes support for existing 3rd party HDL synthesis tools or Altera's native HDL synthesis tool.

"Altera is pleased that Aplus has developed support for our high-performance Stratix and low-cost Cyclone FPGAs," said Tim Southgate, vice president of software and tools marketing for Altera. "Our customers now have access to a fully automated physical synthesis flow that achieves timing closure without costly and time consuming design iterations."

"Altera's flagship high-density Stratix and low-cost Cyclone devices represent a major step forward in FPGAs and we are pleased to offer support for these FPGAs," said Behrooz Zahiri, vice president of marketing at Aplus. "We worked closely with Altera to create an optimized flow that provides the highest possible performance for the Stratix and Cyclone devices compared to any other solution available in the market."

Aplus' PALACE is designed to address the high-performance requirements of today challenging FPGA designs. To produce the superior quality of result with minimal effort, Aplus brings technologies that unify logic synthesis with physical design. PALACE provides the industry's most efficient physical synthesis engine for FPGAs with constraint-driven optimization, architecture-specific mapping, and unique support for multi-cycle on-chip communication. PALACE already supports Altera's APEX(TM), MAX(R) 3000, and MAX 7000 device families. For more information about Altera's devices, please visit www.altera.com/products/devices.

Pricing and Availability

PALACE 2.3 physical synthesis software is available now. Pricing for the PALACE physical synthesis software starts at $14,995 (U.S.). PALACE 2.3 may be requested by email at [e-mail]. Additional information about PALACE can be found on the World Wide Web at www.aplus-dt.com.

About Aplus Design Technologies

Aplus Design Technologies, Inc. (Aplus) is a privately held company providing advanced physical synthesis and architecture development tools for programmable logic devices. Combining advanced logic synthesis with physical design, Aplus' physical synthesis tool PALACE(TM) performs architecture specific optimization to offer at least one technology generation performance advantage over the existing design tools. The company is located in Los Angeles, California, and its website is www.aplus-dt.com.

Note to Editors: Altera, The Programmable Solutions Company, the stylized Altera logo, specific device designations and all other words that are identified as trademarks and/or service marks are, unless noted otherwise, the trademarks and service marks of Altera Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. PALACE is a trademark of Aplus Design Technologies. All other product or service names are the property of their respective holders.