Samsung Licenses ARM Thumb RISC Core; Thumb Provides 32-bit Performance at 8/16-bit System Cost.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 18, 1996--Samsung Semiconductor Inc. (SSI) and Samsung Electronics Co. (SEC) today announced at Embedded Systems Conference West an agreement to extend their technology license with Advanced RISC Machines Ltd. (ARM).

Under the terms of the agreement, Samsung has acquired a license for the ARM7TDMI "Thumb" RISC processor core. This core allows for enhanced performance with low power and small die size by using an instruction "compression" technique called "Thumb." Samsung had previously licensed the ARM6, ARM610 and ARM7 RISC technologies.

"The ARM7TDMI RISC core will allow us to produce a low-cost yet extremely powerful line of microcontrollers, able to fill 8- and 16-bit applications where size, cost and code density are critical factors," said John Weekley, Samsung Director of Micro Marketing. "The Thumb core will also be offered to those customers requiring ASIC integration."

The ARM7TDMI completes Samsung's microcontroller offering (4-bit, 8-bit, 16-bit, 32- bit) and makes them a full-system solution provider. This huge market is growing at a fantastic rate, and Samsung's addition of the ARM cores will help to address the needs of emerging markets wishing to use this technology as well as allowing for system upgrades in existing 8- and 16- bit designs.

The Thumb architecture is ideal for such applications as cellular phones, wireless modems, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and palm-top computers, as well as "smart" answering machines, fax machines, VCRs, Digital Video Disk (DVD) players, etc.

According to H.L. Roh, Samsung's director for the Micro Components Business Group, "Samsung Electronics is already using ARM RISC technology inside a number of emerging consumer electronics products. Our immediate plans call for using the ARM7TDMI in Samsung products where a delicate balance between size, cost and power must be maintained."

The ARM7TDMI is an ARM7 32 bit RISC processor core with the Thumb extension to reduce system cost. Thumb offers 32- bit RISC performance at 8/16-bit system cost through a "compression" of the ARM instruction set, resulting in excellent code density and thereby saving expensive memory. On execution, 16-bit Thumb instructions are "decompressed" transparently on the fly into full 32 bit ARM instructions.

Designers can select between ARM and Thumb modes during execution for optimum price/performance balancing.

Thumb is an extremely small core at only 5mm squared, offers better code density and higher performance at lower clock speeds than common 8- and 16-bit CISC/RISC controllers and is a fraction of the code size of traditional 32-bit architectures.

Robin Saxby, president and CEO of ARM, is pleased with the new agreement: "To our delight, this extends the license agreement with Samsung announced in May 1994. Samsung's internal consumer product development will bring large volumes to ARM, and their microcontroller product plans will extend ARM's reach into many more diverse applications."

Samsung Semiconductor

Samsung Semiconductor is a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, a $21 billion division of the $84 billion, Korean-based Samsung Group. Samsung's Semiconductor Division is the sixth largest semiconductor manufacturer and the leading producer of memory products in the world.

Samsung Semiconductor's North American headquarters are located in San Jose. Samsung was the first company to sample a family of 16-Megabit DRAMs in 1990, and the first to introduce the 64-Megabit DRAM. Samsung delivered the first fully synchronous DRAM in 1993, and the first fully functional 256-Megabit DRAM in 1994.

Advanced RISC Machines Ltd. (ARM)

ARM designs, licenses and markets high-performance, low-cost, low-power consumption 32-bit RISC processors, peripherals and development tools for embedded control, consumer multimedia, DSP and portable applications. ARM also provides consulting and training. ARM licenses its technology to semiconductor partner companies, who focus on manufacturing, applications and marketing.

The versatility of ARM's cores, together with the unparalleled breadth of the partnership's expertise ensures that ARM-based solutions are available to meet almost every customer's processor needs. The ARM semiconductor partners are: AKM, Alcatel Mietec, Atmel ES2, Cirrus, Digital, GEC Plessey Semiconductors, LG Semicon, NEC, Oki, Samsung, Sharp, Symbios Logic, TI, VLSI, and Yamaha. Together they make ARM the world volume embedded RISC standard.

To learn more about ARM, please see our Web Site at http://www.arm.com -0-

Note to Editors: ARM, Thumb, EmbeddedICE and the ARM Powered Logo are trademarks of Advanced RISC Machines Ltd.

CONTACT: Samsung Semiconductor

Vera Haire, 408/954-7228

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Cain Communications

Mark Alden, 408/291-2580