Altera and Gennum to Deliver Next Generation Video Interfaces for Broadcast Industry

LAS VEGAS, NAB2005, April 13 -- Altera Corporation (Nasdaq: ALTR) and Gennum Corporation (TSX: GND) today announced that the companies are working together to deliver a next-generation Video interface for the broadcast industry. The flexible, low-cost solution, will feature Altera's Stratix® GX FPGAs and Gennum's cable equalizer and driver products, and enable a 3-Gbps signal over a coax. A demonstration of the solution will be on display at NAB2005, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Conference.

"The movement in the broadcast industry toward 1080-line progressive video formats is creating demand for a 3-Gbps serial interface," said Alan Ferguson, director, video transport products at Gennum. "Copper is still the lowest cost method of transporting digital video, so the industry will be pleased to learn that 100 meters of coax is possible at 3-Gbps."

Altera's programmable logic and Gennum's ASSPs offer digital broadcast equipment manufacturers a flexible, cost-effective path to a successful system design. The Altera® Stratix GX FPGA's serializer and deserializer, combined with Gennum's equalizer and cable driver, produce a multi-rate link that supports Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) protocols 259M-C (270 Mbps) and 292M (1.485 Gbps), and twice the SMPTE 292M data rate (2.970 Gbps).

"Enabling a 3-Gbps video link over coax is further evidence of Altera's ongoing commitment to provide low-cost solutions for the broadcast industry," said Todd Scott, senior director of the broadcast and consumer business unit at Altera. "The solution we developed with Gennum allows the design of a fully programmable and flexible multi-rate platform for real-time video applications."

The demonstration of the 3-Gbps link (two times the 292M SMPTE specification for high definition serial video) over 100 meter Belden 1694A cable can be viewed at Altera booth number C11212 and at Gennum booth number C8514.

About Altera

Altera Corporation is the world's pioneer in system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) solutions. Combining programmable logic technology with software tools, intellectual property, and technical services, Altera provides high-value programmable solutions to approximately 14,000 customers worldwide. More information is available at www.altera.com.

About Gennum

Gennum Corporation is a leading producer of hybrid and silicon integrated circuits (ICs), electrical components and sub-systems for the video and audio markets, and a new provider to the data communications market. Gennum has offices in Burlington and Ottawa, Canada, and subsidiaries in Japan and the United Kingdom. Gennum (TSX: GND) has operated since 1973 and its shares have been listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange since 1982. More information is available at www.gennum.com.