Artisan, National Semiconductor and ARM Collaborate on PowerWise Initiative for Intelligent Energy Management

SUNNYVALE, Calif. & SANTA CLARA, Calif. & CAMBRIDGE, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 12, 2003-- Artisan's Libraries Will Help Support Rapid and Efficient SoC Designs Utilizing Advanced Low-Power Technology

Artisan Components, Inc. (Nasdaq:ARTI), National Semiconductor Corporation (NYSE:NSM), and ARM (Nasdaq:ARMHY)(LSE:ARM), today announced that Artisan, a leading provider of physical intellectual property (IP), will participate in the PowerWise(TM) initiative to increase the energy efficiency of mobile devices. Artisan libraries will be used as a reference platform for National's PowerWise technology and the ARM(R) Intelligent Energy Manager technology.

As part of the collaboration on the PowerWise technology, Artisan plans to make voltage level shifters available for selected standard cell libraries in order to support designs with multiple voltage domains. Artisan also plans to provide Scalable Polynomial Delay Modeling (SPDM) that offers accurate timing representation with variable supply voltage.

"Working with National and ARM allows our libraries to enable a unified power management approach for SoC low-power design," said Neal Carney, vice-president of marketing at Artisan. "We are pleased to collaborate with these industry leaders to provide an innovative solution to increase the energy efficiency of mobile devices."

"PowerWise technology is enabling SoC designers to greatly extend the battery life of portable devices," said Peter Henry, vice president of portable power systems, National Semiconductor. "The availability of Artisan's libraries enables seamless implementation of PowerWise technology in mainstream product designs."

"National Semiconductor, Artisan and ARM are working on several joint projects to facilitate widespread adoption of advanced energy management technologies throughout the ARM Partnership," said Mike Muller, ARM CTO. "ARM aims to achieve widespread adoption of Intelligent Energy Manager technology as part of a continuing commitment to low power in the ARM product roadmap. Artisan plays an important role in enabling the implementation of the technology in silicon."

Reducing the power consumption of digital processors is critical to the success of next-generation mobile phones. Recognizing this, National Semiconductor and ARM announced a strategic business relationship to jointly develop and market energy-efficient technologies to increase battery life of portable electronic devices (see press release...National Semiconductor and ARM Jointly Develop Power Efficient Systems for Handheld Devices...Nov. 11, 2002). The companies are also working with EDA tool companies such as Synopsys on the reference design flow and design tool support for implementing the PowerWise technology as part of a complete solution controlled by the ARM Intelligent Energy Manager technology.

About PowerWise Technology
PowerWise technology offers a new a solution for increasing energy efficiency of handheld portable devices. The heart of the PowerWise technology for embedded system-on-chip (SoC) designs is an integrated adaptive power controller (APC), which communicates with an external energy management unit (EMU) using the recently released PowerWise Interface (PWI) open-standard. PowerWise technology reduces the system power supply voltage to the absolute minimum necessary to meet the required level of performance.

National Semiconductor's PowerWise closed-loop adaptive voltage scaling (AVS) technology increases energy efficiency significantly over existing open-loop voltage scaling schemes, achieving the lowest possible voltage at which an application can still meet its performance requirements.

About Intelligent Energy Manager Technology
The ARM Intelligent Energy Manager solution implements advanced algorithms to optimally balance processor workload and energy consumption, while maximizing system responsiveness to meet end-user performance expectations. The Intelligent Energy Manager technology works with the operating system to dynamically predict the required future CPU performance level for the applications running on the mobile phone. This prediction is the passed through a standard programmer's model to National's PowerWise on-chip APC block which adaptively sets the minimum required power supply delivered by the external compliant power management chip to achieve the required performance point.

About Artisan Components
Artisan Components, Inc. is a leading provider of physical intellectual property (IP) components for the design and manufacture of complex system-on-a-chip integrated circuits. Artisan's products include embedded memory, standard cell, input/output, analog and mixed-signal components, which are designed to achieve the best combination of performance, density, power and yield for a given manufacturing process. Artisan has licensed its IP components to over 1,200 companies involved in integrated circuit design. Artisan is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif. More information about Artisan Components, including free library access, can be found at http://www.artisan.com.

About ARM
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-on-chip (SoC) designs to leading international electronics companies. ARM also provides comprehensive support required in developing a complete system. ARM's microprocessor cores are rapidly becoming a 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.

About National Semiconductor
National Semiconductor is the premier analog company. Combining real-world analog and state-of-the-art digital technology, the company is focused on analog-based semiconductor products, which include stand-alone devices and subsystems in the areas of power management, display drivers, audio, amplifiers, imaging and data conversion. The company targets key markets such as wireless, displays, PCs, networks and a broad range of portable applications. With headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., National reported sales of $1.67 billion for the 2003 fiscal year, which ended May 25, 2003. Additional company and product information is available on the World Wide Web at www.national.com.

Artisan Components and Artisan are registered trademarks of Artisan Components, Inc. National Semiconductor is a registered trademark and PowerWise is a trademark of National Semiconductor Corporation.

ARM is a registered trademark of ARM Limited. "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; ARM France SAS; ARM Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd.; and ARM Belgium N.V.

Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, Artisan's plans to add support in its libraries for designs with multiple voltage domains and scalable polynomial delay modeling, the use of Artisan's libraries in National's PowerWise Initiative and ARM's Intelligent Energy Manager technology, and the expected benefits of such collaboration. These statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, whether there will be technical or other difficulties that delay or prevent Artisan from developing intellectual property components that support the PowerWise Initiative and ARM's Intelligent Energy Manager technology; market acceptance of these enhanced library products and uncertainties attendant to any new product offering. We refer you also to the documents that Artisan files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, in particular the section entitled "Factors Affecting Future Operating Results" in Artisan's annual report on Form 10-K and its quarterly reports on Forms 10-Q. Artisan, National and ARM disclaim any obligation to update or correct the information contained in this press release as a result of financial, business or any other developments occurring after the date of the release.