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Upgraded ispLEVER-Starter Design Tools Support All LatticeEC FPGAs

5/18/2005 - Lattice Semiconductor Corporation (NASDAQ: LSCC) announced that its upgraded ispLEVER®-Starter 5.0 design tools can now be downloaded from the Lattice website. ispLEVER-Starter 5.0 is offered free of charge in order to encourage easy evaluation of Lattice's recently announced ispLEVER 5.0 programmable logic design tool suite. ispLEVER-Starter 5.0 uses the same interface and design flow as ispLEVER 5.0, and can be used to take a design from concept to device programming. Like previous ispLEVER-Starter design tools, ispLEVER-Starter 5.0 supports all Lattice ispXPGA® FPGAs, CPLDs, ispGDX® and SPLD devices.

The PC-based ispLEVER-Starter 5.0 tools also now include design support for all low cost LatticeEC^TM FPGAs as well as the LatticeECP-DSP6^TM device. This expanded design support gives users unprecedented access to Lattice's newest low cost FPGAs.

"The LatticeEC family, with 7 family members ranging in density from 1.5K to 33K LUTs, is being used in designs around the world," said Stan Kopec, Lattice vice president of corporate marketing. "With design support for the entire product line so accessible, every design engineer worldwide will be able to evaluate our technology and its advantages first-hand."

ispLEVER 5.0-Starter Features
Many features and performance enhancements have been added with the release of ispLEVER 5.0-Starter, including:

• Production support for the LatticeECP/EC low cost FPGAs
• Support for ALL Lattice FPGA, FPSC, CPLD and SPLD device families (even those previously offered only in Advanced ispLEVER configurations)
• Significant performance improvements include:
  • FIFO performance increased by 50-70%
  • LatticeECP DSP block performance is substantially faster
  • Device resources used have been reduced by an average of 5%
• Extensive documentation and help additions and enhancements
• Significantly enhanced FPGA floorplanning flow
• New DSP building blocks and design features, including subsystem parameterization
• In-system logic analysis improvements with the ispTRACY^TM tool
• Fully integrated Precision RTL 2005a synthesis from Mentor Graphics
• Synplify 8.0b synthesis from Synplicity
• Dozens more major additions and improvements to nearly every aspect of the design flow

A full list of ispLEVER 5.0 features and enhancements can be seen at www.latticesemi.com/products/devtools/software/isplever50.cfm

Availability and pricing
The ispLEVER 5.0-Starter design tools are available now at no charge and can be downloaded from www.latticesemi.com/starter

About the LatticeECP-DSP and LatticeEC FPGA Families
The LatticeECP-DSP^TM and LatticeEC FPGA device families are architected to provide the most optimized feature sets combined with the lowest total solution costs of any FPGAs. The new LatticeECP-DSP products, targeted for high-performance DSP applications, provide up to a 50% performance and 75% logic utilization improvement over other low cost solutions when implementing common DSP functions. The LatticeEC FPGA product family, targeted for general-purpose FPGA applications, is a precise and targeted response to the market's explosive demand for low cost, architecturally streamlined logic solutions. Through advanced 130nm silicon technology, an optimized architecture and proprietary circuit design, the new Lattice devices lower total solution costs by up to 30% to 50% compared with existing FPGA solutions, and are expected to broaden the adoption of FPGAs within the $20 billion ASIC marketplace.

About Lattice Semiconductor
Lattice Semiconductor Corporation provides the industry's broadest range of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) and Programmable Logic Devices (PLD), including Field Programmable System Chips (FPSC), Complex Programmable Logic Devices (CPLD), Programmable Mixed-Signal Products (ispPAC®) and Programmable Digital Interconnect Devices (ispGDX®). Lattice also offers industry leading SERDES products.

Lattice is "Bringing the Best Together" with comprehensive solutions for system design, including an unequaled portfolio of non-volatile programmable devices that deliver instant-on operation, security and "single chip solution" space savings. Lattice products are sold worldwide through an extensive network of independent sales representatives and distributors, primarily to OEM customers in communications, computing, industrial, consumer, automotive, medical and military end markets. Company headquarters are located at 5555 NE Moore Court, Hillsboro, Oregon 97124-6421, USA; telephone 503-268-8000, fax 503-268-8037. For more information about Lattice Semiconductor Corporation, visit www.latticesemi.com

Lattice Semiconductor Corporation, Lattice (& design), L (& design), ispGDX, ispLEVER, ispTRACY, ispPAC, ispXPGA, LatticeEC, LatticeECP, LatticeECP-DSP and specific product designations are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Lattice Semiconductor Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries.

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