Actel Fusion PSC Wins EDN'S Innovation of the Year

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 04, 2006 — Actel Corporation (NASDAQ: ACTL) today announced that its Actel Fusion™ Programmable System Chip (PSC), the industry's first mixed-signal field-programmable gate array (FPGA), was named the winner in the Digital IC and Programmable Logic category at EDN's 2005 Innovation of the Year competition last night. The award-winning Actel Fusion PSC offers the unprecedented integration of mixed-signal analog, embedded flash memory and FPGA fabric in a single chip, enabling designers to quickly move from concept to completed design and deliver feature-rich systems to market.

The awards, which honor outstanding engineering products in the electronics industry, are the result of online voting by EDN's worldwide readership. The three semi-finalists in the category - the Actel Fusion PSC, HardCopy II from Altera and the µSerDes from Fairchild Semiconductor - were selected from hundreds of applicants by a panel of EDN's technical editors.

According to John Shirmer, EDN group publisher, the winners "are the light and future of innovation and creativity in high technology."

"As our winners demonstrate again this year, innovation is evident everywhere from components and ICs to software and the most complex test gear," stated EDN editor in chief Maury Wright. "I feel privileged to work in electronics and witness engineers that are perpetually driven to innovate. It is their determination and creativity that we honor when we choose the best of the best to take home an EDN Innovation award."

"This prestigious award is extremely valuable to Actel because EDN's readers are our customers," said John East, president and CEO, Actel. "This clearly reflects a widespread appreciation for our commitment to deliver truly innovative products with unique features that meet the real-world requirements of our customers and ultimately, enhance end-product value."

Actel Fusion Programmable System Chip

The Actel Fusion family offers the unprecedented integration of programmable analog, up to 8Mbits of high-performance flash memory, and up to 1.5M system gates of in-system programmable (ISP) FPGA fabric in a monolithic PSC. Extending the core benefits of the company's single-chip flash FPGA technology - live at power-up, low power consumption, design security, practical firm-error immunity and low total system cost - the Actel Fusion devices provide an excellent alternative to costly and space- and time-consuming mixed-signal ASIC design. With the integration of core analog blocks, the new Actel Fusion PSCs are well suited for applications in the industrial, medical, military/aerospace, communications, consumer and automotive markets.

About Actel
Actel Corporation is the leader in single-chip FPGA solutions. The company is traded on the NASDAQ National Market under the symbol ACTL and is headquartered at 2061 Stierlin Court, Mountain View, Calif., 94043-4655. For more information about Actel, visit http://www.actel.com. Telephone: 888-99-ACTEL (992-2835).

The Actel name and logo are trademarks of Actel Corporation. All other trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners.

Contact: Ferda Mehmet, A&R Edelman, 415.308.7877