Sharp Licenses Parthus MachStream Java Acceleration Platform For Use in Advanced System-on-Chip Products
Camas, Washington and Dublin, Ireland - January 30, 2002 - Sharp
Microelectronics of the Americas (SMA), a division of Sharp Electronics
Corporation, and Parthus Technologies (Nasdaq: PRTH, LSE: PRH), a leading
developer of intellectual property for the mobile Internet market,
announced today that SMA has signed a licensing and royalty agreement for
the Parthus MachStream Java acceleration platform.
The licensing of MachStream by SMA follows the licensing of the Parthus
InfoStream PDA/Smartphone platform announced in February last year. SMA
has acquired this intellectual property platform as part of a campaign to
penetrate the rapidly growing market of components for web-enabled mobile
devices. InfoStream is intellectual property that lowers power consumption
while MachStream includes a Java engine that accelerates application speed
and improves performance.
Sharp Corporation designated SMA as the North American design center
for microcontroller (MCU) and system-on-chip (SOC) products in February
2001. SMA is committed to the timely delivery of products based on
customer needs worldwide. To accomplish this goal, SMA continues investing
in the intellectual properties that will add value to the MCU / SOC
product offerings and enhance the performance of its customer's products.
"Selection of MachStream is part of our on-going strategy to acquire
the necessary IP to advance the design of our market-focused SOC
products," said Terry Thomas, director of marketing for Microcontroller
and System-on-Chip for SMA. "MachStream will help advance our strategy of
becoming a leading provider of solutions for mobile applications."
Parthus' MachStream platform will allow SMA to rapidly deploy SOCs
delivering PC-equivalent performance on a handheld device while consuming
no more battery power than today's PDA. For example, on a typical
web-enabled PDA, MachStream can increase application speed by10-35x and
update information on the fly. In a live environment, stock quotes
downloaded from the Internet onto a mobile device take approximately 2
seconds with MachStream compared with 17 seconds without the acceleration
platform. With this level of performance and power savings, SMA's new line
of BlueStreak MCU / SOC products will enable a new class of mobile
applications in areas such as peer-to-peer gaming, music and video
downloads, and Internet surfing.
In addition, SMA's SOC products using MachSteam can enable the
acceleration of applications running on a wide variety of wireless
operating systems and standards, including Microsoft's Stinger &
PocketPC and Lineo's Embedded Linux.
"SMA has demonstrated a significant commitment to providing advanced
microprocessors for the mobile market," said Kevin Fielding, president of
Parthus Technologies. "By licensing MachStream as a complement to the
InfoStream agreement, SMA is poised to take leadership status with the
application performance of the combined platforms. MachStream combined
with InfoStream single-handedly eliminates the trade-off between power
consumption and performance that constantly challenges the mobile
computing industry."
About Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas
Sharp Microelectronics of the America (SMA), Camas, Washington, is a
U.S.-based company and a division of Sharp Electronics Corporation which
is a subsidiary of Sharp Corporation, Osaka, Japan. Sharp is a worldwide
developer of core digital technologies that are playing an integral role
in shaping the next generation of electronic products for consumer and
business needs. SMA offers breakthrough memory, LCD, opto, CCD, RF/IR,
microcomputer and system-on-chip components, along with packaging and
integration skills that help design engineers throughout North and South
America bring their ambitious ideas to market. SMA is dedicated to
improving people's lives through the use of advanced technology and a
commitment to innovation, quality, value and design. Product information
from SMA is available at http://www.sharpsma.com/
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