Allegro Microsystems, Inc. Nominated by EDN Magazine in 15th Annual Innovation of the Year Awards Competition

Worcester, MA, January 20, 2005 — Allegro MicroSystems, Inc. has been selected from a field of hundreds as a finalist for this year's EDN Innovator/Innovation Awards. Allegro was nominated in the Passive Components/Sensors category for its A132x family of linear Hall-effect sensor ICs, the world's first family of automotive-grade linear sensor ICs in a SOT23W package.

Instituted in 1990, EDN's Innovation Awards honor the people, products and technologies that have shaped the semiconductor industry over the past year. Nominees for the Innovator of the Year category must have demonstrated innovation that resulted in a significant advance in technology and/or product development during the past 12 months. Nominees within the Innovations of the Year (product/technology categories) must also demonstrate the above and must have shipped in volume in the 2004 calendar year.

Allegro's A132x linear family has a temperature-stable quiescent output voltage and very repeatable room-temperature sensitivity. These attributes make this linear family ideal for use in linear and rotary position sensing systems in the harsh environments of automotive and industrial applications over extended temperatures to -40°C and +150°C. Output sensitivity and quiescent output voltage precision are obtained through post-package factory programming during end-of-line testing.

A proprietary dynamic offset cancellation technique reduces the residual offset voltage normally caused by device overmolding, temperature dependencies, and thermal stress. The offset technique is implemented with an internal high-frequency clock allowing the device to operate to a bandwidth above 20 KHz. This is an order of magnitude larger than competing devices with dynamic offset cancellation.

"As the saying goes, many are called, but few are chosen," said John Dodge, EDN Editor-in-Chief. "Our technical editors have done outstanding work on the difficult task of identifying the finalists. The differences in the products EDN covers are often subtle and tricky to flush out. Congratulations to all the finalists on a job well done."

In the next few weeks, EDN's worldwide audience of electronics engineers and engineering managers will use an online ballot to select the ultimate winners from among these finalists. EDN's editorial staff and the EDN Editorial Advisory Board also take part in determining the final winners. Winners will be announced at a ceremony on March 7, 2005 in San Francisco.

About EDN
EDN, is published by Reed Business Information. Headquartered in Newton, Mass., EDN serves the vital information needs of design engineers and engineering managers worldwide. The EDN franchise includes EDN, EDN Europe, EDN Asia, EDN China, EDN Japan, and EDN.com.

About Allegro

Allegro MicroSystems, Inc. is a leader in developing, manufacturing and marketing high-performance power and Hall-effect sensor integrated circuits. Allegro's innovative solutions serve high-growth applications within the automotive, communications, computer/office automation, consumer and industrial markets. Allegro is headquartered in Worcester, Massachusetts (USA) with design and applications centers located in North and South America, Asia, and Europe. Further information about Allegro can be found at www.allegromicro.com.

Editorial Contact:
Stephanie Fennelly
Director - Marketing Communications
Tel: (508) 854-5363
sfennelly@allegromicro.com