Artisan Provides Advantage Libraries Free for TSMC's Nexsys 90-Nanometer Technology

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 12, 2004 -- Artisan Components, Inc. (Nasdaq:ARTI), a leading provider of semiconductor intellectual property (IP) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. (TSMC) (NYSE:TSM), the world's largest dedicated semiconductor foundry, today announced a license agreement for Artisan's Advantage(TM) Platform to support TSMC's 90-nanometer (nm) process technologies. The agreement, which extends Artisan and TSMC's long-term relationship, calls for the TSMC-optimized Advantage Platform to be distributed at no charge to Artisan's large user community through its Access Library Program.

Artisan's Advantage Platform was developed specifically to address the performance, power and manufacturability challenges posed by nanometer process technologies. Incorporating new architectures and design techniques, Artisan's Advantage Platform can help to dramatically increase speed and reduce power. The Artisan Advantage Memories offer a forty-percent speed increase with fifty-percent power reduction over previous architectures. Artisan's latest standard cell libraries offer an enhanced set of cells with features designed to improve performance, density and power. All of the Artisan Advantage products incorporate leakage reduction features and techniques to help customers reduce static power in their designs. The Advantage Platform includes Artisan's extensive set of views and models providing integration with many of the industry's leading electronic design automation (EDA) tools.

The Advantage IP conforms to the Artisan design standard and will be optimized for TSMC's 90-nanometer design rules and characterized using the latest electrical models of TSMC's process. The Advantage IP will include implementations in TSMC's 90nm general-purpose processes and support multiple transistor threshold voltages, which provides customers a range of performance.

"TSMC is pleased to continue our partnership with Artisan to bring free libraries to customers," said Genda Hu, vice president of marketing at TSMC. "The features of these 90-nm libraries provide real benefits for meeting advanced SoC design requirements."

"Artisan's Advantage Platform was driven by our customers' need for nanometer design solutions that ensure ease of use and first-pass silicon success," said Neal Carney, vice president of marketing at Artisan. "The combination of the Advantage IP with TSMC's advanced 90nm process capability can offer customers a complete 90nm solution."

Advantage Product Availability

Front-end views for Artisan's Advantage Platform are expected to be available for download from Artisan's website on April 15, 2004. For more information about Artisan's TSMC-based Advantage Platform, visit www.artisan.com.

About TSMC

TSMC is the world's largest dedicated semiconductor foundry, providing the industry's leading process technology and the foundry industry's largest portfolio of process-proven library, IP, design tools and reference flows. The company operates one advanced 300mm wafer fab, five eight-inch fabs and one six-inch wafer fab. TSMC also has substantial capacity commitments at its wholly-owned subsidiary, WaferTech, and its joint venture fab, SSMC. In early 2001, TSMC became the first IC manufacturer to announce a 90-nm technology alignment program with its customers. TSMC's corporate headquarters are in Hsinchu, Taiwan. For more information about TSMC please see http://www.tsmc.com.

About Artisan Components

Artisan Components, Inc. is a leading provider of physical intellectual property (IP) components for the design and manufacture of complex system-on-a-chip integrated circuits. Artisan's products include embedded memory, standard cell, input/output, analog and mixed-signal components, which are designed to achieve the best combination of performance, density, power and yield for a given manufacturing process. Artisan has licensed its IP components to over 1,200 companies involved in integrated circuit design. Artisan is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif. More information about Artisan Components, including free library access, can be found at www.artisan.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the delivery of Advantage Products for TSMC's 90nm processes, the specifications and performance characteristics of such products, the impact and benefits of such products for IC designers and the future of the Artisan/TSMC relationship. Actual results may differ materially. These statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including technical or other difficulties that delay or prevent the availability of such 90-nanometer library products, difficulties in the integration of Artisan's Advantage products with TSMC's processes or third party products, competition and other technical limitations. We refer you also to the documents that Artisan files from time-to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, in particular the section entitled "Factors Affecting Future Operating Results" in the Artisan's annual report on form 10-K and its quarterly reports on Forms 10-Q. Artisan disclaims any obligation to update or correct the information contained in this press release as a result of financial, business or any other developments occurring after the date of the release.

Artisan Components and Artisan are registered trademarks and SAGE-X and Advantage are trademarks of Artisan Components, Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE: Artisan Components, Inc.