Allegro's MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Certification Test Suites Selected by STMicroelectronics

GRENOBLE, France -- August 28, 2006-- Allegro today announced that the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 decoders from set-top-box chip leader STMicroelectronics have successfully passed Allegro compliance test suites including syntax, stress and system tests, for Main and High profile, level 3 and 4.

"Thanks to Allegro test suites we were able to validate the quality and the performance of our MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 decoders," said Thierry Bauchon, R&D Director, Home Entertainment Group, STMicroelectronics. "We believe that compliance with Allegro products is a guarantee of high quality for our customers. Firstly, it ensures that the decoders will perform in worst case conditions and secondly that the products will remain compliant through the evolution of encoders. From our MPEG2 experience, we know that encoders will eventually exercise all the capabilities of the standard. Overall, Allegro test suites allowed us to have an early, robust and stable full-system solution, as demonstrated by the successful launch of ST's STi7100 high-definition TV single-chip decoder."

"We are very pleased to have been chosen by STMicroelectronics. ST is the historical leader in digital video compression and its use of our certification test suites is strong evidence that Allegro products are a perfect fit for the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC market," said Pierre Marty, CEO of Allegro.

About Allegro

Allegro is a leading provider of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC solutions, including industry standard Compliance Test Suites, Real-time audio/video Encoders and Transcoders. Allegro products have been chosen by more than 30 major IC providers, OEMs and Broadcasters. www.allegrodvt.com