ARC International and Sonic Network Announce Embedded Audio Synthesis for the ARCsound Audio Subsystem

ELSTREE, England and BOSTON, Mass, May 25, 2005 - ARC International (LSE: ARK) and Sonic Network Inc., a worldwide provider of audio synthesis technology to the handheld consumer device and musical instrument markets, today announced that Sonic's Embedded Audio Synthesis (EAS™) technology is now available for the ARCsound™ audio subsystem. Optimized to ARC's patented configurable architecture, Sonic's EAS technology is ideal for designers of high volume mobile devices where low power consumption and a small memory footprint are critical to developing cost-effective applications.

Combined with the preconfigured ARCsound audio subsystem, Sonic's EAS technology, including MIDI synthesis, provides SoC designers with a pre-integrated and validated, high quality audio solution that offers the lowest die size and power consumption in its class. A typical ARCsound configuration requires as few as 75,000 gates, consumes as much as 55 percent less system power and is up to 30 percent smaller compared to competitive solutions.

EAS technology from Sonic Network is a compact and scalable audio synthesis platform comprised of a General MIDI synthesizer, matched wavetable soundsets and audio extensions for multiple ringtone formats and audio effects such as multi-band equalization, 3D enhancement, reverb and high frequency enhancement and chorus. The EAS technology provides a scalable architecture with polyphony from 8 - 128+ voices and sampling rates from 8kHz - 44kHz. Since Sonic Network produces all their wavetables in-house in their own recording studios, EAS users gain the advantage of being able to specify a wavetable to their exact size, sampling frequency, instrumentation and voicing needs. Most importantly for embedded use, Sonic's EAS technology is capable of providing high quality audio synthesis in a low footprint with memory requirements from 50k Kbytes (including the wavetable), coupled with very low power consumption.

Sonic's EAS technology on the ARCsound subsystem supports the following open standards:

• General MIDI Level 1 (GM1)
• MIDI Type 0 and MIDI Type 1
• General MIDI Lite (GML)
• Mobile DLS (mDLS)
• Scalable Polyphony MIDI (SP-MIDI)
• Synthetic Mobile Application Format (SMAF) including ADPCM
• Downloadable Sounds (DLS) and Mobile Downloadable Sounds (mDLS)
  

"There is a distinguished and growing list of companies who are using ARC's configurable technology to design high-volume mobile devices," said Jennifer Hruska, founder and president of Sonic Network. "As MIDI continues to proliferate through the embedded industry as the emergent standard for mobile devices, this partnership allows designers of ARC-Based applications access to a robust, high quality audio synthesis solution."

Dan Davis, director of multimedia solutions for ARC International, said, "ARC's application-specific subsystems offer licensees a pre-configured solution of must-have technology critical to the design of media-intensive consumer devices. By partnering with industry leaders such as Sonic, we can offer optimized audio technology that meets any design requirement or codec standard. This dramatically reduces our customers' overall design effort and gets their ARC-Based products to market more quickly."

ARCsound Audio Subsystem

The ARCsound audio subsystem is a preconfigured, licensable audio platform for use in high volume SoC designs. The ARCsound subsystem includes state-of-the-art audio codec software, a preconfigured ARC processor with custom audio extensions and a full suite of hardware and software development tools. The ARCsound subsystem meets stringent quality requirements for cost-sensitive, high-volume markets.

Availability

The ARCsound audio subsystem is already shipping to customers and is available now from ARC International. Embedded Audio Synthesis is available directly from Sonic Network for the ARCsound audio subsystem and for future ARC multimedia subsystems.

About Sonic Network

Sonic Network, Inc. provides embedded audio technology and content (music and sounds) that enable high quality, engaging audio and multi-media playback. The company licenses its products in a wide variety of markets including Wireless Devices, Semiconductors, PC Soundcards, Games, and Music Synthesizers. Consumers enjoy crystal clear music and multi-media playback on all devices, despite a particular platform's memory, processing or functional constraints. For this reason, Sonic has gained a well-deserved reputation of providing superb next-generation quality audio.

About ARC International plc

ARC International is the world leader in low-power, high-performance 32-bit configurable CPU/DSP processor cores, subsystems, real-time operating systems and development tools for embedded system design. ARC's patented configurable and extendible cores assist customers in the development of next generation digital media, consumer and communications devices, resulting in lower cost, higher performance SoC products.

ARC International maintains a worldwide presence with corporate offices in San Jose, California, USA and Elstree, UK. The company has research and development offices located in England and the United States. For more information please visit the ARC website at: www.ARC.com. ARC International is listed on the London Stock Exchange as ARC International plc (LSE: ARK).

ARC, the ARC logo, ARCsound and ARC-Based are trademarks or registered trademarks of ARC International. All other brands or product names contained herein are the property of their respective owners. This press release may contain certain "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties. For factors that could cause actual results to differ, visit the company's website as well as the listing particulars filed with the United Kingdom Listing Authority and the Registrar of Companies in England and Wales. Licenses from third parties may be necessary to implement certain features in devices that are compliant with industry standards.

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