SUNNYVALE, Calif. and CAMBRIDGE, UK - Mar. 12, 2002 - UMC (NYSE: UMC), a world leading semiconductor foundry, and ARM [(LSE: ARM); (Nasdaq: ARMHY)], the industry's leading provider of embedded RISC processor technology, today announced that UMC has licensed the ARM946E™ core and the ARM1022E™ core. With this new agreement, UMC, an ARM Foundry Program Partner, offers an expanded portfolio of ARM® cores to designers of ARM core-based solutions.

"UMC continues to be popular choice for developers of ARM core-based designs," said Antonio J. Viana, director, Foundry Program, ARM. "This new agreement underscores UMC's continued commitment to the ARM Foundry Program. UMC's customers now have more choices and options for their SoC designs with regards to ARM industry leading microprocessors and UMC's cutting-edge process technology."

"The ARM946E core and ARM1022E core are welcome additions to our broad portfolio of IP core design offerings," said Dr. Karl Wang, vice president of product marketing at UMC. "Now our customers have access to two new microprocessor cores that will prove to be extremely important in communications applications to consumer applications."

The two companies today also announced that the ARMTDMI® core and the ARM922T core can be manufactured on UMC's 0.13 micron process technologies. The ARM7TDMI core is also production verified on UMC's 0.25 and 0.18-micron silicon, and the ARM922T™ core is production verified in 0.18 micron silicon.

The ARM946E macrocell is well suited to a wide range of embedded applications. It combines an ARM9E-S™CPU with 8K instruction and data caches, instruction and data tightly-coupled memory (TCM) interfaces, a protection unit, and an AMBA® on-chip AHB interface. The size of the instruction and data TCM memories are configurable to enable tailoring of the hardware to the embedded application.

The ARM1022E macrocell incorporates the advanced ARM10E™ integer core, instruction and data caches, full-featured memory management unit, dual high-bandwidth 64-bit AMBA technology-compliant AHB interfaces, and 16K/16K caches. The macrocell also includes an enhanced 16 x 32-bit multiplier, capable of single cycle MAC operations, 16-bit fixed point DSP instructions to accelerate signal processing algorithms, as well as supporting the Thumb® 16-bit instruction set for high code density.

The ARM Foundry Program is an innovative business model that enables original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in emerging markets to gain access to ARM processor technology for use in the design and manufacture of advanced system-on-chip (SoC) solutions. There are currently 30 Partners in the Foundry Program, which was launched in 2000. ARM now offers the ARM7TDMI core, the ARM922T core, the ARM946E core and the ARM1022E core through the Foundry Program.

The Foundry Program offers a flexible partnership model that accelerates the time-to-market for ARM core-based designs and enables OEMs, which do not have access to fabrication facilities, to work directly with an approved ARM semiconductor foundry. Unlike a traditional ARM license, where a licensee gains both manufacturing and design rights, the ARM Foundry Program builds a three-way Partnership between ARM, an approved silicon foundry, and an OEM.

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 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.

ARM, Thumb, AMBA and ARM7TDMI are registered trademarks of ARM Limited. ARM9E-S, ARM922T, ARM946E, ARM10E and ARM1022E 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; and ARM France SAS.