SuperH Inc. Provides Software Development Tools to STMicroelectronics

Customers of ST40 based devices to benefit from SuperH state of the art development tools technology.

San Jose, California; Bristol, UK and Tokyo, Japan - 21 August 2002 SuperH, Inc., an independent world leader in 32-bit and 64-bit embedded RISC microprocessor solutions, today announced that STMicroelectronics (ST) has agreed to use software development tools supplied by SuperH, Inc. to support customers of its ST40 based devices. ST40 products are based upon the SH-4 core licensed from SuperH, Inc.

The agreement will enable ST to offer state of the art Open Source tools in support of ST40 devices, allowing users to take full advantage of SuperH's ongoing investment in tools technologies well into the future.

SuperH's Software Development Tools are based on industry standard, Open Source GNU technologies and support standard Linux distributions as well as proprietary kernels. SuperH has built on the existing high quality of the GNU Open Source tools to further optimise its architecture. In addition, SuperH is actively working with members of the Open Source community to optimise GNU and Linux technologies so that they can take full advantage of the power harnessed by SuperH architecture.

Commenting on the announcement, Jon Frosdick, Director of Software Development at SuperH, Inc., said, ''We are very pleased to be the selected SuperH tools supplier for ST. The combination of the growing adoption of standard Open Source technologies within embedded consumer markets, together with SuperH's specific expertise in enhancing these technologies for the SuperH microprocessor architecture, make our tools an extremely compelling solution for licencees such as ST. This decision is a direct reflection of the knowledge and skills that SuperH has in the GNU tools area.''

Greville Commins, Marketing Director for the ST Micro Cores & Development Tools Division, said, ''SuperH tools are highly efficient for ST40 software development, both in terms of build speed and final code quality. We have had good success in migrating existing application code to the SuperH tools and we anticipate wide acceptance in our customer base.''

About SuperH, Inc.
SuperH, Inc., was established as an independent company in 2001 following an agreement between STMicroelectronics and Hitachi to create an independently managed entity to develop processor cores for the open market.

The high-performance, low-cost power efficient SH-4 core, is targeted at the next generation digital consumer, automotive and telecommunications applications. Earlier this year SuperH released the SH5-100 series core expanding the portfolio of licensable IP offered by SuperH, Inc. In the future, SuperH, Inc. will develop all subsequent SuperH cores to the open market, including the development of the SH-6 and SH-7 cores.

The SuperH family of high-performance 32-bit and 64-bit RISC-based processor cores is ideally suited for applications that require a highly integrated system-on-chip solution that includes a powerful embedded processing engine and can run a wide variety of application software on industry-standard operating systems and middleware. SuperH processors are used in many fields including digital consumer products such as set-top boxes, and digital cameras and games platforms; factory automation systems and car information systems. Further information about SuperH products can be found on www.superh.com.