ARM Holdings PLC – Preliminary results For The Year Ended 31 December 2003

CAMBRIDGE, UK – Jan. 27, 2004 -  ARM [(LSE:ARM); (Nasdaq:ARMHY)], the industry’s leading provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC microprocessor solutions, today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Triscend Corporation, a pioneer and leader in configurable system-on-chip (CSoC) devices and customizable microcontrollers (MCUs).  The completion of the acquisition is subject to the fulfillment of certain conditions including approval by the shareholders of Triscend.

Founded in 1997, Triscend is a 41-person, privately-held, venture capital-funded company based in Mountain View, Calif.  The company’s single-chip platform delivers a ready-to-customize system-on-chip (SoC) with the flexibility of a field-programmable device and the price point of a standard product.

“Given the industry trend for upgrading 8- and 16-bit MCU designs, ARM believes the 32-bit MCU market will grow substantially over the next few years,” said Warren East, CEO, ARM.  “By investing in this market now with the acquisition of Triscend, the ARM Partnership will be well positioned to take advantage of the anticipated growth.”

The acquisition will bring ARM customer-proven MCU platform designs and supporting tools, enabling the company to deliver 32-bit microcontroller solutions to satisfy increasing demand as engineers move to higher performance designs.  ARM will be able to proliferate the ARM architecture by selling configurable MCUs to OEMs for emerging applications. A new Program, to be launched within the existing ARM Partner Programs, will also offer a seamless migration path to take matured MCU designs into ARM Partners’ standard products and ASIC programs for high-volume applications.

“ARM is widely recognized as the leading innovator in microprocessor IP and is the ideal company to move our technology forward.  With the rise in costs of ASIC design at 90 nanometers, we believe configurable MCU platforms will become a key solution which will benefit our mutual customers,” said Reynette Au, CEO, Triscend Corporation.

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-chip 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

ENDS

ARM is a registered trademark of ARM Limited. All other brands or product names are the property of their respective holders.  “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.