ZHSOC Becomes The First ARM Approved Design Center in China

CAMBRIDGE, UK – Mar. 17, 2004 – ARM  ([LSE: ARM); (Nasdaq: ARMHY)], the industry’s leading provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC processor solutions, today announced that Shanghai Zhonghua Electronics Co Ltd (ZHSOC), the first company in China to provide a professional system-on-chip design service, has become the first ARM® Approved Design Center in China.

Shanghai-based ZHSOC will support the rapidly growing number of Partners in the ARM Foundry Program that choose to outsource all or part of their design and manufacturing activities. ZHSOC will work closely with fabless design companies and foundries in China to speed time-to-market. 

“Today’s announcement is a further milestone in the development of the ARM Connected Community in China, bringing certified design skills to local IC developers from a domestic design house for the first time,” said Jun Tan, president of ARM China. “IC design service is a critical step for a fabless design company in evolving a device from the concept stage to the finished product.”

“ZHSOC offers our Partners in China an added-value service. This enhanced IC value chain means improved time-to-market for both local manufacturers and international companies that want to take advantage of the high skill levels and low costs available in China,” added Tan.

ZHSOC has an IC design team of 50 engineers, deploying a wide range of continuously upgraded EDA tools. The company uses advanced top-down IC design flow techniques and offers both chip-level and system-level IC design verification and testing through its in-house system laboratory.

“We offer a full custom SoC design service including both front-end design and back-end services. Our front-end services include architecture design, source code design, verification, design for test, and netlist generation, and our back-end services embrace process optimization, P&R, physical verification, timing analysis, signal integrity analysis, and rule checking,” said George Tai, president and CEO of ZHSOC. “As an ARM Approved Design Center, we can now offer a comprehensive turnkey design service to manufacturers seeking IC solutions based on the unique ARM technology.”

With the addition of ZHSOC, ARM now has a comprehensive network of   Approved Design Centers worldwide, including 10 in the Asia Pacific region. “We are committed to a fast expansion of our Connected Community in China,” noted Tan. “We believe it is essential for us to provide seamless design and production support for the growing number of innovative semiconductor companies that seek to include industry-leading ARM microprocessor cores in their devices.”

About the ARM Approved Design Center Program
ARM Approved Design Center Partners must go through a strict qualification process to become an ARM Approved Design Center.  This includes a design flow audit, training on implementing designs with ARM cores, tools, AMBA™ interface peripherals and development techniques.  Each Design Center must demonstrate its own unique skills in specific technology domains, as well as end-market expertise.  The ARM Approved Design Center program also provides additional benefits such as geographic and time-zone locality and local language support.  For more information on the ARM Approved Design Center program, please visit the ARM website.

About ARM
ARM is the industry’s leading provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC microprocessor solutions. The company licenses its high-performance, low-cost, power-efficient RISC processors, peripherals, and system-chip designs to leading international electronics companies. ARM also provides comprehensive support required in developing a complete system. ARM’s microprocessor cores are rapidly becoming a volume RISC standard in markets such as portable communications, hand-held computing, multimedia digital consumer and embedded solutions.

ENDS

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