CAMBRIDGE, UK and SUNNYVALE, Calif. - Feb. 28, 2000 – ARM [(LSE:ARM); (Nasdaq:ARMHY)] and UMC today announced they have signed an agreement to enable UMC customers to utilize ARM?intellectual property (IP) for advanced system-on-chip (SoC) solutions. This new program will provide UMC's foundry customers who are pursuing emerging, high-growth markets, with easy access to ARM processor cores on a per-use basis.

"We're experiencing a strong demand for ARM solutions from foundry customers," said Reynette Au, vice president of Worldwide Marketing, ARM. "Many of these customers are aggressively pursuing advanced SoC designs in emerging market segments, and our partnership with an industry leading semiconductor foundry like UMC will enable these companies to get into production with ARM core-based designs as soon as possible."

"ARM has been one of the most demanded cores amongst our customer base, and we are delighted to expand our long-standing relationship with ARM to enable more widespread use of ARM cores," said Jim Kupec, president, UMC (USA) and head of Worldwide Marketing and Sales. "This foundry program will allow us to provide our customers with access to ARM cores, enabling faster time-to-market for critical market segments. Time-to-market is the key requirement of UMC customers that motivated us to further expand our Gold IP™ portfolio with this innovative program with ARM. As the first foundry to offer ARM cores, UMC will now be able to offer its leading-edge processes to customers that require an ARM7TDMI core."

"SSL is delighted to be partnering with ARM," said Kevin Fielding, COO of SSL. "Availability of the ARM license is key to SSL as it is the preferred choice of processor for Wireless Internet devices by our OEM customer base worldwide. A strong and lasting partnership with ARM allows our mutual customers the flexibility to deploy Wireless Internet Platform IP with the ARM processor core, and source from UMC."

"We are excited to be one of the first UMC customers to utilize the ARM7TDMI core in this innovative model for our advanced ADSL products," said Mike Gulett, president and chief operating officer, Virata. Obviously, ARM has been extremely successful at garnering design wins across multiple application segments, and it is clear from UMC's rapid growth that the foundry model is taking hold. Thus, we see this as a program that will benefit the industry and our customers."

With this new foundry program, ARM and UMC will work together to reinforce the ARM architecture's acceptance as the industry's leading 16/32-bit RISC embedded processor core.

ARM continues to meet the needs of its partners, and of the embedded processor industry, by offering complete SoC solutions including processor cores, peripheral IP, development tools, applications software, EDA tools and design services. The ARM architecture is well supported by semiconductor and system manufacturers, real-time operating system providers, third-party toolchain developers, application software providers and ARM design centers. The combination of UMC's world-class process technology and broad customer base, with ARM's industry-leading RISC processor technology, will allow the two companies to work together to enable their customers to produce leading-edge SoC devices, facilitating rapid growth in a wide range of emerging applications.

ARM, a leading intellectual property (IP) provider, licenses 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 the 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 http://www.arm.com.

ASICplus and Gold IP are trademarks of UMC. ARM, ARM Powered, Thumb and StrongARM are registered trademarks of ARM Ltd. ARM7TDMI is a trademark of ARMLtd. 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.