Configurable processor technology brought to Japan

Appointment of a country manager and new regional partners expand ARC's reach into the centre of the world's consumer electronics industry in Japan.

As part of its strategy to bring the power of its patented configurable processors and application-specific subsystems to Japan's world leading consumer electronics industry, ARC International has announced new executive management for its Japan office, and new business partnerships that will help expand ARC's sales, marketing, distribution and support capabilities with tier-one Japanese OEMs and semiconductor companies.

Kazuaki Okawa, a respected industry veteran with close to twenty five years of experience in the Japanese semiconductor and systems industries, has been appointed to the role of country manager for ARC Japan.

Kogent and Nippon SystemWare Company (NSW) bring distributor and design services capabilities to ARC, and enhance the company's solution offerings to Japanese customers.

At a joint press conference with senior executives and representatives from Japan's system-on-chip (SoC) industry, Carl Schlachte, president and CEO of ARC International, said, "Japan leads the world in the development of leading SoC designs that drive many of today's most innovative consumer products".

"Increasingly, Japanese companies are adopting configurable SoC technology because of its ability to enable designers to develop lower cost, more differentiated end products that are tailored to the needs of high volume markets." "These announcements signal our increasing focus on and deep commitment to servicing Japan's electronics industry," Schlachte continued.

"Okawa-san brings the right balance of vision and leadership skills to ensure we succeed in meeting our goals in Japan".

"Our industry partners will help expand our presence in this growing market and ensure the benefits of ARC's technology will be available for years to come." Prior to joining ARC International, Okawa served in executive positions at Synopsys and inSilicon, and in strategic sales roles at companies such as Phoenix Technologies".

""Semiconductor designers are under increasing pressure to meet challenging time-to-market windows and low cost points," Okawa remarked".

""For close to ten years, ARC's configurable processor technology has been helping customers meet these goals".

"I look forward to helping guide ARC International's Japan strategy and to helping make the company the leading provider of configurable SoC technology to Japanese designers." ARC's decade long legacy in Japan - as consumer electronics devices continue to drive the majority of design starts throughout the global SoC industry, configurable technology is playing an increasingly important role in helping companies lower cost and get to market more quickly with highly differentiated end products.

ARC's configurable technology enables Japanese licensees to develop smaller, more power efficient - and therefore lower cost - chips that ease the challenge of capturing market share with next-generation ARC-based consumer electronics products.

ARC's legacy in Japan reaches back to 1996 when Nintendo licensed ARC's configurable technology for a graphics accelerator chip that was designed for the Super Nintendo game platform.

Since then, designers and OEMs around the world have increasingly adopted ARC's configurable processor architecture, including the recently introduced 600 and 700 families of CPU and DSP cores, and the ARCsound application subsystem.

Today, ARC is working with leading third party companies to lower the SoC design challenge its Japanese licensees face.

By partnering with industry leading tool providers, such as Green Hills Software, ARC is ensuring customers have access to a range of optimised tool suites that reduce development time and lower overall development cost.

ARC's configurable technology is protected by a recently awarded U.S.

patent, virtually assuring licensees that their ARC-Based innovations will be protected in one of the world's most important markets.

U.S.

Patent Number 6,862,563 was awarded to ARC and is entitled "Method and Apparatus for Managing the Configuration and Functionality of a Semiconductor Design".

One practical implementation of this technology is ARC International's proprietary ARChitect processor configurator.

Used by all of ARC's processor licensees, ARChitect is a Java-based design tool that greatly simplifies the core design process, and enables SoC designers to create chips that precisely meet application requirements of high-volume markets.

About ARC International - ARC International is the world leader in low-power, high-performance 32-bit configurable CPU/DSP processor cores, subsystems, real-time operating systems and development tools for embedded system design.

ARC's configurable and extendible cores assist customers in the development of next generation digital media, consumer and communications devices, resulting in lower cost, higher performance SoC products.

ARC International maintains a worldwide presence with corporate offices in San Jose, California, USA and Elstree, UK.

The company has research and development offices located in England and the United States.

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