Symbian First to Provide Native Support for ARMv6 Architecture

LONDON, UK and CAMBRIDGE, UK, Dec. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Symbian Ltd, developer of Symbian OS, a de facto industry standard operating system for advanced mobile phones, and ARM [(LSE:ARM; Nasdaq:ARMHY)], the industry's leading provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC microprocessor solutions, today announced Symbian's native support for the ARMv6 architecture in Symbian OS.

Symbian and ARM have a long-term, strategic partnership that aims to drive development of innovative solutions for mobile devices. The companies collaborated for more than a year to enable concurrent development of the ARMv6 architecture and future versions of Symbian OS. This collaboration has resulted in Symbian's development of a highly optimized system OS solution. Utilizing the physically addressed caches in the ARM1136J-S(TM) core reduces Symbian OS context switch times, which provides better memory management performance and reduced power consumption through eliminating forced cache flushing by the operating system -- both of which are critical aspects for mobile devices.

"Because Symbian OS has been licensed by the world's leading mobile phone manufacturers, Symbian has unique insight into the industry's future requirements. Symbian and ARM work in strategic partnership to deliver solutions which meet those requirements," said David Wood, executive vice president of Partnering, Evangelism & Research, Symbian. "The ARMv6 architecture-based Symbian OS solution improves essential power and memory performance while also enabling the enhanced wireless multimedia capabilities that Symbian OS licensees want to build into their future products."

ARM recently introduced its first ARMv6 architecture-based solutions, the ARM1136J-S core, which is included in the ARM11(TM) PrimeXsys(TM) Platform. (See separate press releases ... ARM Sets Performance Standard with Two New ARM11 Cores ... ARM Launches New ARM11 PrimeXsys Platform ... Oct. 14, 2002.) Texas Instruments has licensed both of the new ARM11 cores from ARM for its next-generation OMAP microprocessors and wireless chipsets.

"The Symbian OS coupled with TI's ARM® core-based OMAP(TM) platform provides wireless manufacturers and application developers with the performance and power efficiency required to deliver advanced multimedia applications," said Alain Mutricy, TI vice president and OMAP Platform general manager. "We are committed to working closely with Symbian and ARM to ensure that future OMAP processors that leverage the new ARM11 cores are highly optimized for the Symbian OS."

"The combination of an ARM11 PrimeXsys Platform using the ARMv6 architecture and the Symbian OS will provide a rich multimedia experience for mobile phone users," said Mary Inglis, director, Operating Systems Business Development, ARM. "Writing applications for Symbian OS which utilize the new multimedia SIMD instructions in the ARMv6 architecture will allow applications developers to create more compelling content for a given clock speed without compromising battery life."

Symbian OS products powered by microprocessors based on the ARM1136J-S core and the ARM1136JF-S(TM) core are expected to come to market in 2004.

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 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.

About Symbian

Symbian develops and licenses Symbian OS, the de facto industry standard operating system for data-enabled mobile phones. Symbian has licensed Symbian OS to the world's top handset manufacturers including Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson. In total, Symbian OS licensees account for more than 80 percent of worldwide mobile phone sales.

Symbian's mission is to create a mass market for Symbian OS mobile phones by enabling Symbian OS licensees to build winning products. Publicly announced products based on Symbian OS include the SonyEricsson P800 Smartphone, Nokia 7650, 3650, N-gage.

For more information, please go to www.symbian.com .