ARC Powers Audio for Fujitsu's Next-Generation Multi-Standard HD Set-Top Box Solution

SAN JOSE, Calif., and ST. ALBANS, England — ARC International (LSE: ARK) today announced that Fujitsu Microelectronics Europe (FME) has extended its long term relationship with ARC and taken a license for one of ARC’s powerful audio solutions. It will be used to process multi-standard audio codecs in FME’s next generation high definition (HD) digital television decoders, including MPEG audio, Windows Media and other standards. This will help ensure that FME can deliver a high quality audio experience to consumers watching digital televisions regardless of the encoding source.

“Fujitsu first chose ARC because its configurable cores enabled us to build highly differentiated solutions,” stated Johannes Richter, FME’s director of multimedia business unit. “Using ARC’s audio solution enables our next-generation chip to meet critical price points in the highly competitive consumer market. Furthermore, it helps our design team get the chip to market much faster.”

Bill Jackson, ARC’s vice president of marketing, said, “ARC’s multimedia subsystems provide customers such as Fujitsu with a hardware and software solution that reduces their design effort and increase their competitiveness. We are pleased that Fujitsu chose to extend its relationship with ARC, and look forward to their continued success with ARC-Based chips in the high growth set-top box market.”

Global Digital Set-Top Box Market

According to market research firm, Semico Research Corp. in Phoenix, Ariz., the set-top box market in 2007 reached $11B, a 24 percent increase over 2006, and grew to more than 85 million units. The arrival of HD content and the ability to connect to the Internet are factors that are expected to spur new unit growth for this application.