ARC and Global Unichip Partner to Speed Digital Audio System-on-Chip Designs For Greater China's Semiconductor Industry

Partnership Shortens Time to Market for Fabless Chip Companies Targeting High Growth Digital Audio Market

HSINCHU, Taiwan and ELSTREE, England, Dec. 19, 2005 – ARC International (LSE: ARK) today announced a comprehensive design services partnership with Global Unichip Corp. (GUC), a full-service SoC design company and TSMC partner, that will speed time to market for Greater China’s increasing number of fabless startup companies attacking the high-growth digital audio IC market. As an element of the partnership, GUC will provide ARC™ Sound subsystem licensees a range of services from creating silicon based upon customers’ design specifications, to providing back-end layout of RTL and supplying a hardened implementation of the subsystem. The ARC Sound subsystem will be part of the GUC intellectual property (IP) library and available to its customers but sold by ARC’s sales force.

The GUC partnership is ARC’s latest initiative to bring configurability to Asia, and augments the company’s growing network of design services, sales and marketing capabilities in the region that are feeding the increasing appetite for ARC’s patented configurable cores and subsystems.

“As Taiwan’s leading SoC design services company, we are delivering needed solutions in ways that solve tight time-to-market requirements and short development windows,” said Jim Lai, president and COO of Global Unichip Corp. “With ARC we have a partner that can help agile, venture-backed start-up companies get their digital audio designs into silicon quickly.”

“We are pleased to have the premier design services company choose ARC as their premier provider of configurable SoC technology,” says Derek Meyer, senior vice president of sales and marketing. “The Taiwan semiconductor market is transitioning from technology manufacturing to product innovation and manufacturing. Our configurable cores and application-specific subsystems have hit the sweet spot in high-growth markets, such as digital audio, and we’re fortunate to have one of the largest design services companies help us serve our growing customer base.”

The ARC™ Sound Subsystem
The ARC Sound audio subsystem is a licensable audio platform for use in high volume SoC designs. The ARC Sound subsystem includes state-of-the-art audio codec software, a preconfigured 32-bit ARC processor with custom audio extensions and a full suite of hardware and software development tools. A typical ARC Sound 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. The ARC Sound subsystem meets stringent quality requirements for cost-sensitive, high-volume markets.

Availability
GUC is now providing comprehensive design services to ARC licensee throughout Greater China. Global Unichip will have first silicon of the hardened ARC Sound subsystem within the next few months.

About Global Unichip Corp.
Global Unichip Corp. (GUC), a dedicated one-stop, full service SoC (System On Chip) Design Foundry, was founded in 1998 at Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan. GUC provides total solutions from silicon-proven IPs to complex time-to-market SoC design, production, and testing services. With state of the art EDA tools, advanced methodologies, and an experienced technical team, GUC ensures the highest quality and lowest risks to achieve first silicon success. Besides, GUC delivers a one-stop turnkey solution via its partnerships with TSMC and world-class assembly and testing houses. Nowadays, GUC has established a global customer base throughout Greater China, Japan, Korea, North America, and Europe. Its track-record in complex SoC designs has brought benefits to customers in time to revenue at the lowest risk. In 2003, TSMC, the semiconductor foundry leader, became the primary shareholder. With the close partnership with TSMC, GUC is further committed to presenting the most advanced and the best price-performance solutions. For more information, please visit http://www.globalunichip.com

About ARC International
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 CPU technology assists 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).