Red Hat to Port Open Source GNUPro Development Tools to Altera's Excalibur^TM Products

EMBEDDED SYSTEMS CONFERENCE, SAN FRANCISCO—April 10, 2001—Red Hat, Inc. (Nasdaq: RHAT), the leader in developing, deploying and managing open source Internet infrastructure solutions, and Altera Corporation (Nasdaq: ALTR), a leading supplier of programmable logic devices (PLDs), today announced a version of the Red Hat GNUPro embedded development tools that support Altera's ARM®-based and MIPS®-based Excalibur^TM embedded processor solutions.

Altera is the first company to offer leading 32 bit RISC embedded processors coupled with industry-leading programmable logic devices targeted at embedded systems applications. The ARM and MIPS-based Excalibur system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) family combines programmable logic, memory, key peripherals, and an ARM922T or MIPS32 4Kc processor core to create a complete solution for fast embedded systems development. Altera's CMOS-based programmable logic devices (PLD's) are user-programmable semiconductor chips that enhance flexibility and reduce time-to-market for companies in the communications, computer peripheral, and industrial markets.

Red Hat said it will provide consulting services in addition to the port of industry-standard GNUPro embedded development tools to to Altera's embedded hard core ARM and MIPS-based processor products. Red Hat will continue to support GNUPro on Altera's Nios^TM soft processor core, which can be implemented on a wide range of Altera's industry-leading PLDs. Red Hat will also provide ongoing maintenance and commercial support for the open source tools that will be made available to thousands of Altera Quartus II^TM users.

"In partnering with Red Hat in support of our high-performance ARM and MIPS-based Excalibur products, Altera can offer the same embedded software development environment that is currently supported on our Nios soft processor core and we can distribute the widely-used GNUPro embedded development tools to all of our customers using Quartus II," said Jordan Plofsky, Senior Vice President of Embedded Processor Products at Altera.

"Red Hat is pleased that Altera chose Red Hat to develop the building blocks that help their users rapidly adopt next-generation technologies and bring their solutions quickly to market," said Michael Tiemann, CTO of Red Hat. "Thousands of Altera customers will be able to leverage powerful, open source GNUPro embedded development tools to create a whole new generation of tethered devices in several markets. Red Hat continues to provide a complete spectrum of embedded, open source solutions and consistent set of API's to its customers."

Red Hat has more than 10 years of unmatched experience in developing, qualifying, and maintaining leading edge open source products and platforms based on a single source base for Linux and GNU. For more information about Red Hat Embedded please visit http://www.redhat.com/embedded.

About Altera's Excalibur Embedded Processor Solutions
Combining logic, memory, and a processor core, Altera's new Excalibur embedded processor solutions allow engineers to integrate an entire system on a single programmable logic device (PLD). The three families--the Nios^TM soft core embedded processor, the ARM-based hard core embedded processor, and the MIPS-based hard core embedded processor--offer the flexibility of processor cores with the integration of system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) logic.

Excalibur embedded processors can be used in any application requiring processors and PLDs with gate counts up to 1,000,000 gates. They offer full integration with Altera's APEX^TM PLD architecture, and are supported by the QuartusII^TM development tool, which is optimized for the Excalibur embedded processor families.

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.

Altera, The Programmable Solutions Company, APEX, Excalibur, Nios, Quartus II, and specific device designations are trademarks and/or service marks of Altera Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

About Red Hat, Inc.
Red Hat is the leader in developing, deploying and managing solutions built on the benefits of an open source platform. These solutions include an open source product platform for devices to mainframes, a complete end to end set of Professional Services, and the Red Hat Network as the Internet-based backbone for deployment and management of the products and services. Red Hat's open source platform includes the award-winning Red Hat Linux operating system platform, the Interchange e-Commerce platform, Stronghold Secure Web Server, Credit Card Verification software, High Availability Server, GNU-based developer toolkit for embedded development, and embedded run-time Linux, eCOS, and RedBoot solutions.

Red Hat backs up their open source offerings with end-to-end services that include Red Hat Professional Consulting focused on multiplatfom infrastructure and engineering services, Red Hat Engineering services for software development and porting of the operating system and for embedded platforms and devices, Red Hat Enterprise support services for installation services and web and telephone support, and Red Hat Learning services for Linux certification (RHCE) and courses for Apache, Embedded systems, Advanced Developer, and e-Commerce. Red Hat Network provides Red Hat's unique managed services capability to deploy and manage open source products, services, support and management information on-line in real-time to more cost effectively and reliably maintain open source based solutions.

Red Hat is headquartered in Research Triangle Park, N.C. and has offices worldwide. Please visit Red Hat on the Web at www.redhat.com. For investor inquiries, contact Gabriel Szulik at Red Hat, 919-547-0012.

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