ARM Extends Its Leadership In Media Processing With Acquisition Of Video Technology Company

ARM now has a complete suite of media acceleration technologies that meets market demand for low-power solutions with high performance video functionality

CAMBRIDGE, UK – Feb. 10, 2009 – ARM [(LSE: ARM); (Nasdaq: ARMH)] today announced that it has acquired Logipard AB, a leading Sweden-based video IP company.  The privately-owned designer of power-efficient video encode and decode acceleration technologies for the mobile and consumer markets is the leading provider of video IP to one of the world’s leading mobile technology suppliers for platforms used by LG Electronics and two other leading mobile handset OEMs.  The Logipard video IP has shipped in more than 30 million mobile phone units to date. The acquisition enables ARM to bring to market the ARM® Mali™-VE multi standard video engine family of products.

The acquisition adds world class video and imaging technology to the ARM portfolio, making ARM the only IP provider with the in-depth experience and understanding required to meet the market need for an entire range of system elements, from memory controllers, interconnect, application and embedded processors to graphics processors, video engines, physical IP and embedded firmware. 

The highly flexible and scalable Mali-VE architecture offers the optimum combination of high performance, efficient die size, programmability and low power consumption, making it ideal for mobile solutions and converged consumer applications.  The ARM Mali-VE family supports the majority of the leading video codec formats and provides peerless encode and decode codec capabilities for image resolutions from QCIF up to High Definition (1080p) as used in the latest high quality camcorders, digital televisions and Blu-ray players. 

The small silicon area and efficient memory bandwidth solution results in low-power consumption operation, whilst the programmable and scalable architecture enables flexible support for multiple video image formats, both now and in the future. The solution is fully compliant to the ARM AMBA® interconnect standard and operates autonomously, thereby minimizing the load on the host CPU. The Mali-VE3 video engine is available today supporting resolutions up to D1 whilst the high definition 1080p Mali-VE6 solution will be available in the second half of 2009. 

“Video acceleration and processing technologies have become critical for the development of many consumer electronics products, complementing the ARM Cortex™ CPU and ARM Mali GPU IP already incorporated into many high- performance mobile devices,” said Lance Howarth, VP and GM, Media Processing Division, ARM. “Through the adoption of Mali-VE technology, ARM Partners will be able to complement their use of ARM graphics and CPU IP to deliver more efficient system-on-chip (SoC) solutions, whilst reducing risk and accelerating time-to-market.”

“This is a natural next step for Logipard and we look forward to taking the technology to the next level under the ARM brand.  Under the guidance of ARM, the world’s leading IP company, we believe we can establish our products as the technology of choice for video coding within mobile devices,” said Linus Wiebe, CEO, Logipard.

The Mali-VE technology offers full encode support for H.264 at baseline and main profiles, H.263 and MPEG-4SP, making it suitable for a wide range of end user devices such as mobile phones, portable media players and camcorders.  In addition, the flexible architecture enables decoding of High Profile H.264 and all profiles of VC-1 as well as MPEG-2, as required by Internet enabled devices for browsing video content such as YouTube.  The programmable nature of the architecture also allows for future standards and new codec tools to be implemented using firmware upgrade only, significantly improving time to market to support new standards in existing designs.

About ARM
ARM designs the technology that lies at the heart of advanced digital products, from wireless, networking and consumer entertainment solutions to imaging, automotive, security and storage devices. ARM’s comprehensive product offering includes 32-bit RISC microprocessors, graphics processors, video engines, enabling software, cell libraries, embedded memories, high-speed connectivity products, peripherals and development tools. Combined with comprehensive design services, training, support and maintenance, and 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.