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Technology Stocks : ARM Holdings (Advanced RISC Machines) plc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bruce Byall who wrote (674)	1/30/2003 12:44:33 PM
From: Jim Oravetz	Respond to of 912

Analysis: ARM looks to China to improve flat revenues By Stephanie Gordon, EE Times Jan 29, 2003 (9:28 AM) URL: electronicstimes.com London -- ARM Holdings, the Cambridge, U.K., processor intellectual property developer, said it was forecasting "flattish" revenues in the short term after releasing its annual results on Jan. 28. ARM cited ongoing unpredictability in the processor IP sector, but said it remained upbeat on its future prospects based on its growing business in the Asian market. After being forced to make layoffs and take charges following its third quarter results, which saw the company announce declining sales after 18 successive quarters of improving revenue, chief executive Warren East said the company had "been stabilized in spite of difficult market conditions," in its fourth quarter. "We intend to become a major force in China, to drive the development of IP and SoC design. Our mission is to help local users realize their design ideas, from concepts to complete products," said East. ARM said it has positioned itself to take advantage of China's potential to become the world's largest wireless market, with investment by the Chinese Government of $151 billion by 2005. ARM entered the Chinese market in 2000, signing up ZTEIC as a partner to incorporate ARM IP into its ARM7TDMI core-based devices for mobile communications applications. "The company's push into China has been very successful following the opening of an office in Shanghai last year," East said. "We have licensing partnership with some key players in China such as SHHIC, which has licensed our SC100 core for smart card ICs." Other partners signed up in China include Shanghai-based Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., which is using the ARM7TDMI 32-bit RISC processor core. The company plans to produce a test chip based on its 0.18-micron process technology and hopes to see China-based fabless companies develop ICs around the core this year. "We believe that China is going to be a very big supplier of wafers and is expecting to become No.2 after the U.S for wafer production in the coming years," he added. "East Asia including China currently accounts for 40 percent of our business and we think that is going to grow rapidly following the country joining the [World Trade Organization]. Getting the right strategy in place in China has been very important for us." Industry analysts questioned whether the growing Chinese market can make a difference to ARM as long as the processor IP market remains sluggish. "There will be some great, new Chinese [integrated device manufacturers] and foundries," said Malcolm Penn of semiconductor industry watcher Future Horizons. "The local market is big and can support local fabs. It is a new IP market for ARM, but there are big doubts on timing, and certainly with respect to its short- to near-term impact on ARM's" profit and loss. "ARM has already signed up the major Chinese semiconductor companies and many of the foreign companies setting up in China are already ARM licensees. All markets reach saturation and we could be seeing the beginning of saturation for ARM," Penn said. Responding to assertions that the semiconductor IP market is approaching saturation, ARM has stressed that that two-thirds of the top 150 semiconductor companies have yet to become ARM licensees. Others like Penn said most of those companies are not potential licensees since they are either too small or inactive in the markets for ARM's products. The company continues to make money despite its recent slide in revenue. While licensing revenue slowed in the second half, revenue for the year was up 8 percent to $136.1 million. The company logged 70 licenses signed in 2002, compared to 77 in the previous 12 months. Still, company executives stressed that royalty revenues grew 26 percent sequentially in the fourth quarter to about $12.8 million based on record quarterly shipments of 127 million units. Company executives said this indicated that their business was fundamentally sound and that ARM would eventually prosper when end-user market demand picked up.

To: Bruce Byall who wrote (674)	2/4/2003 4:35:46 PM
From: Bruce Byall	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 912

STMicroelectronics Unveils First Details of Its 'Nomadik' Family Of Multimedia Application Processor Chips for 2.5/3G Mobile Phones and Portable Wireless Products Monday February 3, 3:00 am ET Compliant with the Recently Announced OMAPI Standard, ST's 'Nomadik' Chip Family Offers the Industry's Lowest Power Consumption, High-Quality Audio and Video, Scalable Performance, and Easy Software Development GENEVA, Feb. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM - News) today unveiled first details of a new family of multimedia application processor chips that will enable portable terminals to play music, take pictures, record video, and host two-way visual communication in real time. These processors are aimed at 2.5/3G mobile phones, personal digital assistants and other portable wireless products with multimedia capability. In addition, the new family of chips will find applications in automotive multimedia. ADVERTISEMENTCalled 'Nomadik', ST's multimedia application processor family offers ultra-low power consumption, which is facilitated by the optimal partitioning of the chip between hardware and software, combined with ST's low-power CMOS technology and low-power design know-how. This translates into longer battery operation for consumers and performance scalability for product manufacturers. ST's new multimedia processor chips are based on the combination of an ARM926EJ-S(TM) core together with programmable 'smart accelerators' that operate independently and concurrently to handle the key video and audio coding functions, including pre/post-processing. This distributed processing approach simplifies software development for developers because they only need to write code for the ARM® core. In addition, since multimedia functions are not typically executed on the main processor core, there is more headroom for adding new software applications in the future. Nomadik processors build on ST's legacy of success and proven expertise in the digital multimedia segment. A pioneer in MPEG video decoding, ST is today the leading producer of MPEG decoder chips for set top boxes. The company is also a leading supplier of DSP-based audio products and the number one vendor of digital radio receiver chips. Thanks to ST's broad product portfolio, the Nomadik architecture leverages a wide range of complementary functions such as CMOS imagers, smart card ICs, Flash memories, biometric verification chips, Bluetooth radio chips, and data storage solutions. The Nomadik processors are designed to be compliant with the recently announced OMAPI software and hardware interface standard jointly developed by ST and Texas Instruments. This interface standard will simplify software development by making it possible to write native applications once for different hardware platforms. Inside the Nomadik chip the ARM926EJ-S processor core runs at up to 350MHz in ST's 130nm CMOS process and up to 500MHz in ST's 90nm CMOS. The core includes on-board cache, Java acceleration in hardware, and strong real-time debug support. ST's Nomadik architecture supports the popular operating systems for mobile devices, including Symbian OS, the Microsoft WinCE family and Linux. A comprehensive Nomadik tools environment is provided for software development. The Nomadik architecture is highly scalable in terms of both computational power and smart peripherals, allowing easy upgrades to add more features and easy feature-reduction for simpler price-sensitive products. The programmable audio smart-accelerator implements the main industry-standard digital audio encoders and decoders including MP3, MPEG2-Layer II, MPEG2/4-AAC, Dolby Digital, and many others. The programmable video smart accelerator achieves the industry's lowest power consumption running H.263 and MPEG-4 CODECs using an extremely optimized ST proprietary technology. The new H26L (H.264) standard will also be available in future Nomadik implementations. Nomadik offers a standard baseband modem interface to provide modem independence for mobile phone applications. As with the baseband modem, a simple interface supports communication with wireless PAN (Bluetooth), and wireless LAN (802.11a/b/g), and position location (GPS) chipsets from ST and other manufacturers. This flexibility gives manufacturers the freedom to choose their own mix of connectivity solutions across their product line. ST will deliver the first samples of Nomadik processors using 130nm technology early in 2003. These processors will be offered in a stacked package together with Flash memory chips. Future versions of the chips will be in 90nm CMOS and include support for 3D graphics and content security. "The Nomadik multimedia application processor will help accelerate the adoption of smart phones, and provides an ideal balance between the requirements of Open OS processing, rich multimedia and long battery life," said Mike Inglis, Executive Vice President Marketing, ARM. "The ARM926EJ-S core and the PrimeXsys(TM) Platform have helped ST to create a multimedia application processor that enables exciting media rich phones." A leading supplier of semiconductor devices to the mobile industry, STMicroelectronics is the only microelectronics company offering a complete range of products for mobile terminals. This product range includes baseband processors, power management chips, RF devices, display drivers, Flash memories, fingerprint sensors, multimedia processors, CMOS image sensors, MEMS acceleration sensors, and GPS chipsets. For more information: st.com About STMicroelectronics STMicroelectronics is a global leader in developing and delivering semiconductor solutions across the spectrum of microelectronics applications. An unrivalled combination of silicon and system expertise, manufacturing strength, Intellectual Property (IP) portfolio and strategic partners positions the Company at the forefront of System-on-Chip (SoC) technology and its products play a key role in enabling today's convergence markets. The Company's shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange, on Euronext Paris and on the Milan Stock Exchange. In 2002, the Company's net revenues were $6.32 billion and net earnings were $429.4 million. Further information on ST can be found at st.com .