ARC International
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| Type | Acquired by Virage Logic |
|---|---|
| Industry | Digital IP Computer Processor Cores Multimedia Software |
| Founded | Edgware, England 1998 |
| Key people | Geoff Bristow The last CEO |
| Products | Processor IP |
| Employees | 110 (before acquisition) |
| Website | http://www.arc.com/ |
ARC International plc was a developer of configurable microprocessor technology and is now owned by Synopsys. ARC developed synthesisable IP and licensed it to semiconductor companies.
The configurability of the ARC happens at design time (as opposed to run time) using the ARChitect processor configurator.[1] The core was created in such a way that it is extensible. Unlike most embedded microprocessors you can add extra instructions, registers and functionality as if they were made from Lego. Customers look at the task they want to perform, analyse the task, break down the operations, and then choose the appropriate extensions (or create their own) to create their own custom microprocessor. They might optimise for speed, energy efficiency or code density. Extensions can include for example, an MMU, a fast multiplier–accumulator, a USB Host, a viterbi path decoder, etc. etc.
Semiconductor company licensees of ARC products ship approximately 300 million chips containing ARC processor cores every year. ARC has over 140 customers. ARC hosts the ConfigCon series of seminars that occur around the world 3-4 times per year.
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[edit] History
- The roots of ARC International date back to the early 1990s. The company was founded by Jez San to build upon the 3D accelerator technology previously developed for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System by a division of Argonaut Software. This forerunner to the ARC was originally called the Mario (Mathematical, Argonaut, Rotation & I/O) chip and later dubbed the SuperFX. It went on to sell millions, at the time outselling ARM or any other RISC core.[2]
- Following the success of the SuperFX, its designers were split from the main company to a department called ATL (Argonaut Technology Limited). The design was renamed to ARC (Argonaut RISC Core) and marketed as a general purpose, configurable, microprocessor. Later, ATL has spun off as a separate company - ARC International. In 1995 Bob Terwilliger took over as ARC's first CEO. He created the company licensing strategy, commercialized the product including the acquisition of Metaware, VAutomation and Precise Software. He raised $50 million pre-IPO and took the company public in September 2000 raising an additional $250 million.
- 21 September 2000, ARC listed on the London Stock Exchange as ARK.[3]
- 17 June 2002, ARC took over three companies, MetaWare, VAutomation, and Precise Software Technologies [2] but later parts were sold off to other companies.
- April 2007, ARC acquired Teja Technologies of San Jose, California, a specialist in heterogeneous multiprocessor software.[4][5]
- 14 June 2007, ARC acquired Tenison Design Automation of Cambridge, UK, a provider of software tools used to help develop system-on-chip (SoC) designs.[6][7]
- 23 September 2007, ARC acquired Alarity Corporation of St. Petersburg, Russia, that specializes in codec software, firmware, and advanced multimedia architectures.[8][9][10]
- 11 February 2008, ARC acquired Sonic Focus, a specialist developer of audio enhancement technology for digital sound.[11]
- 29 July 2009, ARC confirmed they were in discussions with a third party regarding an offer for the company.
- 18 August 2009, Virage Logic Announces Intent to Acquire ARC International'.[12]
- 15 September 2009, Virage Logic Declares Offer to Acquire ARC International Unconditional in All Respects.[13]
- 5 November 2009, Virage Logic completes acquisition of ARC International.[14]
- 10 June 2010, Synopsys declares offer to acquire Virage Logic including ARC
- 2 September 2010, Synopsys completes acquisition of Virage Logic[15]
[edit] Development Environment
ARC itself provides an open development environment,[16] based on GNU tools environment (GCC, GDB and so). A free community supported version is hosted on sourceforge.[17]
[edit] White Papers on Configurability
- Toshiba, ARC in configurable processor collaboration, May 15, 2006
- SPF: All About Power, Performance, June 30, 2006
- ARCHITECTURES: Programmable ARC platform targets low-cost multimedia, October 2, 2006
- ARC adopts clustered parallelism in media multiprocessing, October 9, 2006
[edit] References
- ^ ARChitect Processor Configurator
- ^ Bolton, Syd. "Interview with Jez San, OBE". Armchair Empire. http://www.armchairempire.com/Interviews/jez-san-interview.htm. Retrieved 28 December 2007.
- ^ ARC INTERNATIONAL Share Price Chart | ARK.L | GB0009645481 | Yahoo! Finance UK
- ^ ARC buys Teja to speed multicore development | DSP DesignLine
- ^ ARC Acquires Teja Technologies to Create Software Platforms and Development Environments for the VRaptor Multicore Architecture
- ^ thechilli RED - Corp. Takes: Tenison EDA acquisition by ARC – The Chilli perspective
- ^ ARC buys Tenison for simulation capability
- ^ ARC gets Russian R&D team with Alarity
- ^ Asics And Gate Arrays news item relating to Arc International Ltd
- ^ EE Times-Asia
- ^ Arc International's super Sonic buy - 21 Feb 2008 - CRN
- ^ [1]<Virage Logic Announces Intent to Acquire ARC International
- ^ Virage Logic Declares Offer to Acquire ARC International
- ^ Virage Logic completes acquisition of ARC International
- ^ Synopsys completes acquisition of Virage Logic
- ^ ARC gnu tools
- ^ ARC CPU Linux kernels and GNU tools
