Altera Corp. and Palmchip Corp. announced their partnership to provide theindustry's first system-on-a programmable-chip (SOPC) development platformfor programmable logic devices (PLDs).

Palmchip joins the Altera Megafunction Partners Program (AMPP) and Altera joins Palmchip's DirectConnect Partner Program.

Through the Altera AMPP program, Palmchip will make available its Palmpak development platformto Altera customers, enabling intellectual property (IP) cores to becombined quickly and easily through a high-performance core interconnectscheme.

“Our partnership with Palmchip speeds time-to-market by providing abetter design infrastructure for next-generation SOPC applications,” saidCliff Tong, vice president of corporate marketing at Altera.

“Previously used for ASIC and ASSP designs, the Palmchip development platform can now beemployed with Altera's high-density Apex PLD architecture bringingcustomers the inherent flexibility of programmable logic and much neededtime-to-market advantages in application areas such as VoIP packetprocessing, 3G wireless, and xDSL equipment.”

Palmchip and Altera plan to make other IP cores available through the AMPPprogram later in 2000.

Available in early Q2 2000, Palmchip will introduce a new development boardthat features an Altera Apex 20K400 device to provide hardware verificationfor SOPC designs based on the Palmpak platform. Palmchip is making its Palmpakdevelopment platform available on a Coreboard for Simutech's Rave system. The Rave system uses Altera programmable logic to support its reconfigurable prototyping system.

Palmchip Corp.

San Jose, CA

www.palmchip.com

Altera Corp.

San Jose, CA

www.altera.com

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