ParthusCeva and ARM Collaborate to Create Common Development Environment for Hybrid CPU/DSP-Based System-on-Chip

Concurrent hardware and software development environment for hybrid CPU/DSP system-on-chip significantly reduces development cost, complexity and time-to-market for ASIC developers

San Jose, CA and Cambridge, UK - 10 December 2002 - ParthusCeva, Inc., [(Nasdaq: PCVA); (LSE: PCV)], the industry's leading provider of licensable Digital Signal Processor (DSP) cores and solutions, and ARM, [(LSE: ARM); (Nasdaq: ARMHY)], the industry's leading provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC microprocessor solutions, today announced a new and innovative development environment for their mutual customers. This development environment enables ASIC designers to combine ParthusCeva's DSP cores and the ARM® CPU cores - the two leading licensed processor cores in the industry - in multiple-core silicon products. Based around the ARM RealView™ development solution, this common development environment significantly reduces the development complexity, verification time and costs for such system-on-chip (SoC) designs.

Industry analyst Jim Turley commented, "The majority of new generation SoC designs will combine a CPU and DSP processor core in the same chip. Most developers have no experience using both, so developing and writing programs is an enormously complex task. This integrated development tool substantially eases the task, and will inevitably lead to better, more-reliable products faster. And it comes from the acknowledged leaders in RISC and DSP, respectively."

This ARM/ParthusCeva partnership enables hybrid RISC/DSP solutions to be emulated, debugged and optimized through a common development environment resulting in a significantly faster and simplified development process. The development environment offers a combined suite of tools using key components from the ARM RealView development solution including the ARM Integrator™ development platform, the ARM RealView Debugger™ and RealView Compilation tools plus ParthusCeva's Integrator platform-compatible Core Module Board and software support tools. This debugging environment enables concurrent software development and will limit expensive chip manufacturing that traditionally is required prior to verification and eventual ASIC production.

"As a significant number of ARM core-based systems combine a hybrid of CPU and DSP cores, this common development environment with ParthusCeva will greatly reduce the development complexity and cost of these hybrid solutions and should further enhance the capabilities of the ARM architecture," said Tudor Brown, chief operating officer, ARM. "This partnership will enable ASIC developers to bring their products to market quickly and cost effectively."

"Hybrid solutions combining CPU and DSP cores are key to practically all new digital devices such as cellular phones, digital cameras, PDAs and a multitude of multimedia devices," said Gideon Wertheizer, EVP and chief technology officer, ParthusCeva. "Our mutual customers will greatly benefit from the two respective leaders in CPU and DSP cores offering the first real-time, multi-core development environment to ease what has traditionally been a very challenging development process."

The common development environment can be used for joint application development, as well as multi-core debugging including multi-core cross triggering, to be used in multi-processor configurations and multi-DSP environments. The environment is fully-compliant with the Advanced High-Performance Bus (AHB), now the heart of the AMBA® methodology, including burst mode and efficient data transfer. The system incorporates AHB bus master and slave configurations, enabling flexible software architecture where either the DSP or ARM processor can control the data transfer. Peripheral boards can be mounted on the platform to handle additional functions such as video, audio, memory expansions or user hardware accelerators.

The development solution can be populated with various generations of ARM processors, including the ARM7™ and ARM9™ core families, alongside all members of ParthusCeva's Cores family including PalmDSPCore®, Teak® and TeakLite® DSP Cores and the most recent addition, the XpertTeak™ sub-system. The tools suite can also be utilized independently of ARM developments for DSP application development.

About the ARM RealView Development Solution

RealView tools provide designers with the best solution for creating and analyzing systems based on ARM technology. They are designed and used by the same engineers who create the ARM architecture. ARM tools are exposed to the highest level of pre- and post-silicon evaluation and development. As a result, the ARM RealView development solution provides the broadest possible range of support for future ARM architectures and derivatives. ARM RealView tools are fully integrated and provide a complete solution to any design or SoC integration challenge, giving the developer higher confidence in first silicon and a faster time-to-market.

The complete ARM RealView development solution includes:

RealView compilation tools including a C and C++ compiler, assembler and linker - now available as a stand-alone package
RealView debug solution made up of the RealView Debugger product, RealViewICE™ emulator and RealView Trace™ module
Boards and platforms including the industry-proven Integrator family

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 such markets as portable communications, hand-held computing, multimedia digital consumer and embedded solutions. More information on ARM is available at www.arm.com

About ParthusCeva

Further information about ParthusCeva

A PDF copy of this press release is also available here

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PalmDSPCore, Teak, TeakLite and OakDSPCore are registered trademarks and SmartCores and XpertTeak are trademarks of ParthusCeva, Inc. ARM and AMBA are registered trademarks of ARM Limited. ARM7, ARM9, Integrator, RealView, RealViewICE, RealView Debugger and RealViewTrace are trademarks of ARM Limited. All other brands or product names are the property of their respective holders. "ARM" is used to represent ARM Holdings plc (LSE: ARM and Nasdaq: ARMHY); its operating company ARM Limited; and the regional subsidiaries ARM INC.; ARM KK; ARM Korea Ltd.; ARM Taiwan; ARM France SAS; and ARM China.

Safe Harbour Statement

This document contains "forward-looking statements", which are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those stated. Any statements that are not statements of historical fact (including, without limitation, statements to the effect that the company or its management "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "plans" and similar expressions) should be considered forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ from those indicated by such forward-looking statements include uncertainties relating to the ability of management to successfully integrate the operations of ParthusCeva and Ceva, uncertainties relating to the acceptance of our DSP cores and semiconductor intellectual property offerings, continuing or worsening weakness in our markets and those of our customers, quarterly variations in our results, and other uncertainties that are discussed in the registration statement on Form S-1 of ParthusCeva (formerly called Ceva, Inc.), on file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.