11 North American Companies Adopt ARC's Low Power Configurable Solutions for a Wide Range of High-Volume Applications

11 Jul 2007 07:00

Low power consumption is one of the most important considerationsfor system-on-chip (SoC) designers creating products fornext-generation electronic applications. This is a key reason whyeleven companies in North America have adopted ARC International's(LSE:ARK) configurable media subsystem and processor solutions tocreate power-sensitive chips for medical, government/security,multimedia, and networking/peripheral devices. See the companionannouncement dated July 11, 2007 for more details on one of thesenewly announced customer licensing agreements. £ ARC's configurable solutions offer some of the lowest powerconsumption of any in the semiconductor intellectual property (IP)industry. For example, an "out-of-the-box" ARC(R) 750D core requiresapproximately half the power of an ARM 1136 or a MIPS32 24Kc core withsimilar configurations. SoC designers can lower power consumption ofan ARC 750D processor (or any other ARC processor) even further byleveraging ARC's easy-to-use configurable technology to tailor it tospecific application requirements. £ ARC is extending its leadership in low power configurablesubsystems and processors through internally led research anddevelopment (R&D) programs, working in tandem with advanced computingdepartments at renowned universities, and via joint initiatives withcompanies such as Cadence Design Systems and Virage Logic. The resultsof these efforts will be integrated into new products and technologiesfrom ARC International. £ Details on ARC's Newly Announced Customer Engagements: £ Medical Applications £ CVRx £ Long battery life is a requirement for implantable medicaldevices, such as blood pressure monitoring systems. For this reason,CVRx(R) based its new Rheos(TM) Baroreflex Hypertension Therapy(TM)System Monitor on a low power, configurable ARC 600 family core. CVRxis a private company located in Minnesota that has developedproprietary technology for the treatment of high blood pressure (alsoreferred to as hypertension) that cannot be controlled withmedications. See companion ARC news announcement dated July 11, 2007for more details. £ Unnamed Medical Applications Customer #1 £ This unnamed ARC customer is a world-recognized company, and aleader in the global medical products industry. Its less-invasivemedical technologies offer alternatives to major surgery and otherprocedures that can be traumatic to the human body. This ARCcustomer's pacemaker devices incorporate configurable ARC cores, whichwere selected because they enable very low power consumption throughthe removal of unnecessary features in the ARC CPU. This greatlyprolongs the battery life of this customer's ARC-Based(TM) products --a critical consideration for implantable medical applications. £ Unnamed Medical Applications Customer #2 £ This unnamed ARC customer manufactures battery-powered,implantable medical devices. It is using a configurable ARC core tocreate an ultra low power product with a long operational life thatcan be inserted directly into patients' bodies. £ Government/Security Applications £ Edgewater Computer Systems £ Edgewater Computer Systems develops real time, high performancemultiprocessor systems for military, government, and commercialoperations. The company's products include multi-channel wireless andwired data communications. Edgewater is developing a wirelesscommunications controller for use on aircraft, and will be using ARC'sconfigurable solutions to minimize the power consumption and die sizeto exactly meet the stringent system requirements. £ Unnamed Government/Security Customer £ This unnamed customer is a leader in command, control andcommunications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance,government services, and related industries. The company chose aconfigurable ARC core for government and military applications becauseof its extremely low power consumption, which is critical to operatingremote systems over long periods of time in unserviceableenvironments. £ Networking/Peripheral Applications £ Conexant Systems £ Conexant is a worldwide leader in semiconductor solutions forcommunications in the digital home. The company is using its licensefor a configurable ARC core to create an integrated solution that canbe used in peripheral devices with combined printer/fax/scanner/copierfunctionalities. ARC's configurable core helps Conexant's design teamreduce overall system power consumption by eliminating unneededelements within the ARC CPU. £ iVivity £ iVivity is a leading developer of innovative, multi-protocolacceleration silicon for both the networking and storage markets. Atthe heart of the iVivtiy SoC is a patented hardware-based protocolacceleration engine that can terminate and regenerate multipleprotocols in real time and at full line rate, independent of packetsize. An ARC customer for a number of years, iVivity has taken a newlicense for the configurable ARC 725 core to create multi-processorSoCs. Leveraging the power of ARC's configurable core technology,iVivity's engineers will be able to optimize the ARC-Based chip forspeed by adding custom instructions to the ARC core while keepingpower consumption to a minimum by eliminating unneeded transistors. £ Teranetics £ Teranetics is a leading mixed-signal integrated circuit (IC)company that develops silicon products for advanced communicationapplications. Teranetics' chips enable 10-Gigabit speeds over thetraditional copper cabling, which is an order of magnitude improvementover speeds in current enterprise networks. The company selected aconfigurable ARC core for its next-generation design because itenabled the creation of a low power solution with small die size thathelps the company's products meet customer price points. £ Multimedia Applications £ Augusta Technology £ Augusta provides mobile device manufacturers with a spectrum ofsolutions from state-of-the-art digital communications components tocomplete communications systems, such as cell phones and portablevideo viewing devices. Augusta is using a configurable ARC product tolower power consumption in their next-generation mobile solutions. £ Qpixel Technology £ Qpixel Technology is a leading innovator in video compressionsilicon and software solutions. The company specializes in digitalconsumer applications that balance superior video quality withextended hours of portable operation at mass market prices. Using itslicense for a configurable ARC core, Qpixel has successfully producedand deployed into the market its QL20x family of H.264 codecs, capableof supporting both Baseline and Main Profile standards. The low powernature of the configurable ARC processor enabled the QL201B and QL202Bchips to provide flexible audio processing while consuming very lowpower, which is critical for portable multimedia applications such asdigital cameras, camcorders, and portable media players. £ VisionFlow £ VisionFlow is focused on developing ultra-low power H.264 videoand multi-core media SoC solutions aimed at mobile and wearable videomarket applications. These include mobile-TV, wearable PMPs, andmobile video phones. Emerging markets call for programmable and powerefficient real-time video compression/decompression solutions. To meetthese challenges, VisionFlow has taken a license for numerousconfigurable ARC 600 family cores to design products such as theVF1000 ultra-low power H.264 video solution. According to John Yuan,VisionFlow's CEO, the ARC 600 core family offered the lowest powerconsumption per MHz for any CPU on the market. In addition, VisionFlowis adding customized instruction extensions to enhance the ARC cores'performance and functionality, which also helps prevent rivalcompanies from cloning VisionFlow's products. £ About ARC International plc £ ARC International is the world leader in configurable mediasubsystems and CPU/DSP processors. Used by over 140 companiesworldwide, ARC's configurable solutions enable the creation of highlydifferentiated system-on-chips (SoCs) that ship in hundreds ofmillions of devices annually. ARC's patented subsystems and cores aresmaller, consume less power, and are less expensive to manufacturethan competing products. £ ARC International maintains a worldwide presence with corporateand research and development offices in California and St. Albans, UK.For more information visit www.ARC.com. ARC International is listed onthe London Stock Exchange as ARC International plc (LSE:ARK). £ ARC and the ARC logo are trademarks or registered trademarks ofARC International. All other brands or product names contained hereinare the property of their respective owners. This press release maycontain certain "forward-looking statements" that involve risks anduncertainties, including the development, implementation, and releaseof features described herein. These are at the sole discretion of ARCInternational. For other factors that could cause actual results todiffer, visit the company's Website as well as the listing particularsfiled with the United Kingdom Listing Authority and the Registrar ofCompanies in England and Wales. Copyright Business Wire 2007