Actel

Actel Appoints New Area Sales Director for Europe

Seasoned Industry Executive Leverages Distribution and OEM Expertise to Drive Sales for Industry’s Lowest Power Programmable Solutions

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 19, 2008 — Bringing seasoned sales leadership to the rapidly expanding European market, Actel Corporation (Nasdaq: ACTL) today announced it has named Eric van der Heijden as its new senior sales director for Europe. With nearly 20 years of experience at multinational distribution and OEM companies, van der Heijden will lead Actel's growth initiatives in Europe for its industry-leading, low-power field programmable gate array (FPGA) and programmable system chip (PSC) solutions, accelerating the deployment of these products into existing and emerging high-volume markets.

Van der Heijden comes to Actel from Semtech Corporation, a leading supplier of high-quality analog and mixed-signal ICs, where he served as sales director for Europe. During his tenure, revenue more than tripled over a four-year period. Before joining Semtech, van der Heijden held various sales management positions within high-profile OEMs and leading distribution companies, including Cypress Semiconductor, Motorola, Memec Benelux and Sonetech Distribution.

"Representing one third of our worldwide revenue, Europe is a key area for Actel," said Jay Legenhausen, senior vice president of worldwide sales at Actel. "With his extensive OEM sales management and distribution expertise, the addition of Eric to our team can further enable Actel to continue its rapid market expansion in the European region, where we see strong demand for our innovative low-power and power management solutions, such as the IGLOO FPGAs and Fusion Programmable System Chips."

Van der Heijden holds bachelor's degrees in electronics and marketing from HTS Electrotechniek in Eindoven, The Netherlands and studied post-graduate management and business at the Bureau Management and Organization in Tilburg, NL and the Management Centre Europe in Brussels, Belgium.

About Actel
Attacking power consumption from both the chip and the system levels, Actel Corporation's innovative FPGAs and programmable system chip solutions enable power-efficient design. 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.

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

Contact: Stephanie Mrus, Actel Corporation, 650.318.4614