ARC and Hellosoft Offer a VoIP Solution that Doubles the Channel Capacity of Comparable Embedded Solutions

ARC and Hellosoft Offer a VoIP Solution that Doubles the Channel Capacity of Comparable Embedded Solutions

SAN JOSE, Calif., and ST. ALBANS, England, December 4, 2008 – ARC International (LSE:ARK), a leading provider of consumer intellectual property (IP) to OEM and semiconductor companies globally, today announced a VoIP solution based on the ARC Sound platform running the VoIP software suite available from HelloSoft, Inc. a leading provider of VoIP technologies, that provides SoC customers twice the voice channels of comparable IP cores*. The ARC and Hellosoft hardware-software combination enables SoC developers to achieve double the voice channels in a smaller silicon area and at lower power consumption than currently available RISC processors on the market.

ARC’s platform efficiency is so compelling that it has already signed a licensing deal with an unnamed fabless semiconductor manufacturer shipping volume with a competing IP supplier who decided to replace that solution based on the proven efficiencies of ARC’s solution. This will differentiate their SoC with up to 4 channels of voice in the highly competitive internet access market.

“We chose Hellosoft’s highly optimized, VoIP software solution, because it delivers excellent voice quality while requiring less processing power on our combined RISC+DSP platform, thus giving ARC a significant advantage against our competitors,” said Sean Redmond, vice president worldwide field operations of ARC International. “VoIP is finding its way into PCs, cell phones, and corded and cordless communications devices using WiFi, WiMAX connectivity for voice communications. Our SoC customers now have an ARC and Hellosoft solution that will give them an edge in pursuing this application space.”

“We developed our software solution to meet the rigorous requirements of voice interoperability in VoIP enabled multi-media devices including handheld gaming units, VoIP terminals, handsets, set-top-boxes, and residential gateways” said Rama Rao Sreeramaneni, VP and GM VoIP business unit of HelloSoft, Inc. “Our patented technology delivers high voice quality through highly tuned speech post-processing and enhancement algorithms including echo cancellation, noise suppression and automatic volume control. With ARC we have a more efficient platform that can better exploit our software’s full potential.”

Technical Details of the Solution

ARC’s and Hellosoft’s VoIP solution enables a single channel to provide the entire telephony stack including Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), G.723.1 full-duplex 3-way conference calling, line echo cancellation, real-time operating system and TCP/IP. The entire solution is expected to require less than 65 MHz of processor bandwidth. This enables a 2-channel implementation in 130-nm process technology with plenty of headroom to grow to 4 channels in 90nm.

Availability

The ARC Sound Subsystem is available immediately for licensing. The Hellosoft VoIP software will be available by the end of the first quarter 2009. For more information, contact voip@arc.com.

* Based on publicly available comparative data. ■