ARM Collaborates With Seagate for Hard Disc Drive Control

CAMBRIDGE, England, June 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ARM [(LSE: ARM); (Nasdaq: ARMHY - News)], the industry's leading provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC processor technology, today announced its collaboration with Seagate to provide embedded, high-performance microprocessor solutions for next-generation hard disc drives. Seagate's recently introduced Cheetah(TM) 15K.3 and Cheetah(TM) 10K.6 disc drives are the first ARM Powered® products to be generated by this collaboration (see press release: Seagate's New Cheetahs Drive Down Storage Total Cost of Ownership - May 6, 2002).

"The storage market represents tremendous opportunities for ARM as the convergence of digital imaging, media and networking is driving the demand for increased enterprise and personal storage capacity," said Dave Steer, Storage segment manager at ARM. "Our extensive experience with embedded system design has enabled us to develop a full range of software and hardware intellectual property (IP), as well as development systems, providing a complete solution for innovative companies like Seagate that are developing complex SoC designs."

ARM worked closely with Seagate to develop the embedded "backbone" of the Cheetah disc drives, which use the AMBA® on-chip interconnect technology to incorporate multiple ARM966E-S(TM) cores. The enhanced level of performance provided by the cores enabled Seagate to create a scalable Cheetah product family of 10K and 15K rpm disc drives for data-intensive applications and I/O-intensive applications.

Seagate used the ARM® Embedded Trace Macrocell technology and the Real-Time Trace technology for debug support of each core in the Cheetah disc drives. The ARM Developer Suite(TM) software, the ARM Multi-ICE® debug hardware and the MultiTrace(TM) debug hardware, which are all part of the RealView(TM) development solution, were used to accelerate firmware design and reduce time-to-market for the multiple Seagate disc drives.

"Using ARM technology within Seagate's new Cheetah products has enabled the implementation of virtually any ASIC design, as well as helped to fine tune the performance of the disc drive," said Michael Robinson, Seagate executive director of VLSI development engineering. "The ARM microprocessor core architecture, as well as a tightly integrated embedded software design and debug environment, enabled us to introduce a wide variety of high-performance products from the same base platform -- minimizing time-to-market and overall development costs."

For more information on the ARM architecture, visit http://www.arm.com or email info@arm.com. For more information on the Seagate Cheetah family of disc drives, visit http://specials.seagate.com/cheetah .

About RealView Tools

RealView tools by ARM provide designers with the best solution for creating and analyzing systems based on ARM technology. Because ARM RealView tools are designed and used by the creators of the ARM architecture, they enable the highest level of pre-silicon evaluation and development and the broadest range of support for future ARM architecture families and derivatives. ARM RealView tools are fully integrated and provide a complete solution to any design or System-on-Chip (SoC) integration challenge, giving the developer higher confidence in first silicon and a faster time-to-market.

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-on-Chip (SoC) 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 .