Sunplus Licenses ARM1176z-S Processor for Advanced Consumer Electronics Applications

HSINCHU, Taiwan and CAMBRIDGE, England -- May 16, 2006 -- Sunplus Technology Co., Ltd, an industry-leading consumer IC design company, and ARM, today announced that Sunplus has licensed the ARM1176JZ-S(TM) processor and ARM® RealView® SoC Designer ESL tools, for developing high-performance, low-power integrated circuit (IC) solutions for digital cameras and multimedia handset processors. This licensing agreement further extends Sunplus' existing partnership with ARM, and demonstrates the value that the ARM architecture brings to its Partners for the development of total system solutions for consumer electronics.

"For the past few years, our focus at ARM has been on building a complete product portfolio to provide customers with industry-leading solutions that offer a competitive edge in the marketplace," said Philip Lu, president of ARM Taiwan. "We believe that this extensive licensing agreement with Sunplus illustrates the benefits of combining a range of ARM technologies to achieve the best compatibility and performance, with the added benefit of growing the Taiwanese IC design industry."

This new agreement with Sunplus underscores ARM's commitment to pursuing the growing opportunities in the Asia Pacific consumer electronics market, specifically in Taiwan. ARM's work with Sunplus will enable the proliferation of ARM technology in high-performance, consumer ICs for communication and multimedia applications.

"ARM is the world's most popular microprocessor architecture, and by licensing this complete solution, we will be able to build on our focus of IC design and system applications for diverse market demands including multimedia, consumer and mobile/wireless communication," said Mr. Den-Jen Huang, VP of Sunplus' Personal Entertainment Business Unit. "By working closely with ARM, we expect to benefit from their feature-rich, low-power, high-performance technologies, to enable us to better support our customers."

The ARM1176JZ-S processor features TrustZone® and Jazelle® technologies, designed for use in consumer and wireless products. Jazelle technology makes the ARM1176JZ-S processor efficient for embedded Java execution; TrustZone technology provides support for building the trusted computing environments required for protection of critical system functions. The processor is also integrated with Intelligent Energy Manager (IEM(TM)) technology which significantly reduces processor energy consumption.

About Sunplus Technology

Sunplus Technology Company Limited, established in 1990, is an IC design company devoted to electrical consumer applications. Sunplus offers not only IC design but also system solutions to maximize customer's profit by differentiating each design. Sunplus reusable Intellectual Properties (IPs) such as audio/video, micro-processor and digital signal processor technologies applied to hundreds of products including LCD driver/controller, game processor, camera controller, mobile media processor and ASICs that contribute to our quality life. With sales of NT$18,781 million for 2005, Sunplus has compound annual growth rate of over 30% over 5 years. For more information, please visit Sunplus website: http://www.sunplus.com

About ARM

ARM designs the technology that lies at the heart of advanced digital products, from mobile, home and enterprise solutions to embedded and emerging applications. ARM's comprehensive product offering includes 16/32-bit RISC microprocessors, data engines, 3D processors, digital libraries, embedded memories, peripherals, software and development tools, as well as analog functions and high-speed connectivity products. Combined with the company's broad Partner community, they provide a total system solution that offers a fast, reliable path to market for leading electronics companies. More information on ARM is available at http://www.arm.com