SMIC And ARC Partner To Bring Configurable Processors To China

Elstree, England, and Shanghai, China -- Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation and ARC International plc announced a joint agreement to equip system-on-chip (SoC) developers in mainland China with configurable technology. SMIC will offer one-stop design and manufacturing services for ARC's configurable processor technology. This joint agreement is part of ARC's strategy to expand business throughout Asia.

A number of ARC licensees selling into China are already leveraging SMIC to produce a range of ARC-Based designs for high-volume embedded applications. ARC licensees can use ARC's configurable CPU/DSP cores and multimedia subsystems with SMIC's manufacturing processes.

"China's semiconductor industry represented close to $7.5 billion in 2004 and is expected to grow about twice the rate of the overall growth of the worldwide semiconductor industry," said Tony Massimini, chief of technology for Semico Research. "Consumer applications will be a key driving force in maintaining the growth in China. These are applications with rapidly evolving features and standards. Configurable cores lend themselves well to such a volatile market as designers are able to develop low cost, differentiated devices."

"We are very pleased to partner with ARC, an industry leader in configurable CPU technology," said Paul OuYang, vice president of Design Services at SMIC. "As consumer-based products continue to dominate the semiconductor industry, SoC designers seek new ways to reduce their development and manufacturing costs, and decrease their time-to-market for their products. Judging by the increasing interest we are seeing from our customers, we believe that ARC's configurable processor technology provides one such solution."

"ARC has more than 100 licensees who together ship an annual volume of close to 100 million units of ARC-Based products," said Derek Meyer, senior vice president of sales and marketing at ARC International. "This new alliance with SMIC is part of ARC's global expansion strategy and further underscores our commitment to working with world-leading semiconductor companies to bring configurable technology to customers throughout Asia. As a leading foundry in China, we are pleased to have SMIC's support to help introduce the benefits of configurability to China."

SOURCE: ARC International