Chunghwa Picture Tubes Chooses Altera SOPC Solution for Next-Generation Plasma Display Products

Taipei, Taiwan, July 30, 2001 -- Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) announced today that it chose system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) solutions from Altera Corporation (Nasdaq: ALTR) to significantly lower production costs and improve picture quality in its next-generation plasma display products (PDPs). CPT, a world-leading supplier of cathode-ray tubes (CRTs) and thin-film transistor liquid-crystal displays (TFT LCDs), plans to further lead its industry by offering high-quality, low-cost PDPs. Products from CPT can be found in many public areas such as train stations and airports displaying news feeds, as well as in restaurants, stores, and other commercial locations, such as karaoke venues.

"Plasma displays are the future of the display market, and the critical success factor for PDP suppliers is lowering production cost," said Wolf Chen, chief engineer for CPT's opto-electronics research and development division. "Lowered total cost of ownership will expand the usage of PDPs from business applications to more consumer applications."

Chen continued, "For key digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms in a PDP, there is no standard chip set available. This means that low-cost programmable logic like the Altera ACEXä 1K family is an ideal solution for bringing these products to market quickly. Furthermore, using the reprogrammability of ACEX 1K devices, we tested and developed new algorithms for improving PDP picture quality. As a result, these algorithms are now implemented in our product and we are confident that the superior quality of our PDPs will make them very successful in the display market."

"Altera's SOPC solutions are designed precisely to support our customer's full product lifecycle from prototype to production," said Ben Lee, Altera vice president of Asia Pacific. "CPT is a leader in their industry and a perfect example of how Altera's programmable logic technology delivers fast time-to-market and cost efficiencies to next-generation end products."

About Altera

Altera Corporation, The Programmable Solutions Company^®, was founded in 1983 and is a leading supplier of programmable logic devices (PLDs). Altera's CMOS-based PLDs are user-programmable semiconductor chips that enhance flexibility and reduce time-to-market for companies in the communications, computer peripheral, and industrial markets. By using high performance devices, software development tools, and sophisticated intellectual property cores, system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) solutions can be created with embedded processors, memory, and other complex logic together on a single PLD. Altera common stock is traded on The Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol ALTR. More information on Altera is available on the Internet at http://www.altera.com.

About Chunghwa Picture Tubes

Chunghwa Picture Tubes was established in 1970 and specialized initially in the manufacturing and sales of monochrome CRT. It took on Japanese Toshiba technology and in 1980 finally succeeded in manufacturing the first domestically produced color picture tube. CPT continued to update its equipment and expand its production capacity. With the industrialization of the nation as its own mission, CPT represents Taiwan in promoting the establishment, expansion and upgrade of the country's electronics and computer industry. With this management concept of industry dedicating itself to the service of the nation, CPT has been encouraging domestic production of major electronics subassemblies in the R.O.C.

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