ARM signs up MIPS loyalist Toshiba

ARM, the Cambridge-based chip design house, has rounded off a good Q4 with its first licence from Toshiba -- for the entry-level ARM7TDMI. In an interview with UK trade magazine Electronics Weekly Gordon Fairley, Toshiba Asic manager, said: "We were a solid MIPS company but we've got customers asking us for ARM -- it's the de facto standard in Europe." Toshiba joins Matsushita, Seiko Epson and Hewlett-Packard among six new licencees signed up in Q4. Two of the new recruits wish to remain anonymous for the time being –- ARM says only that one is based in the US and the other is in Europe. ARM revenues for Q4 ending December 31, 1999. climbed 52 per cent to £12.5 million and pre-tax profits jumped 133 per cent to £3 million. For the full year, sales jumped 59 per cent to £42.3 million (1997: £26.6 million) and profits were up 108 per cent to £9.4 million. ARM is a deceptively small company, with its revenue representing a lucrative -- but small -- slice of the ARM platform market worldwide. In 1998, semiconductor licencees pumped out 50 million units based on the ARM architecture, a fivefold leap on 1997. ®