FREMONT, Calif. -- May 6, 1998 --Strengthening its leadership position in the Internet appliance market, Cirrus Logic Inc. (NASDAQ:CRUS) today announced a licensing agreement with Advanced RISC Machines (ARM) Ltd. that adds eight operating systems to its portfolio of ARM-based chip solutions. This agreement ensures a wide range of key software tools for OEMs demanding ARM's small form factor and low-power advantages. With its more than 3 million ARM-based chips sold worldwide, Cirrus Logic is leading the industry's acceptance of the open ARM architecture as a de facto standard.

The eight new operating systems that will be ported include: Tornado & VxWorks from Wind River Systems, Inc.; pSOS+ from Integrated Systems Inc.; XRAY Debugger & VRTXmc RTOS from Mentor Graphics' Microtec Division; RTXC from Embedded Systems Products, Inc; C Executive from JMI Software Systems, Inc; and ChorusOS from Sun Microsystems. These operating systems join available ports including Helios from Perihelion; RISC O/S from Acorn; EPOC32 from Psion Software; OS/9 from Microware; Nucleus from Accelerated Technology; and Teknema O/S from Teknema increasing Cirrus Logic's repertoire of OS support for its ARM-based solutions to a total of 14.

"As a leading supplier of ARM-based solutions, Cirrus Logic works closely with us," noted Rod Crawford, director of third party software for ARM Ltd. "This collaboration will drive the proliferation of products based on the ARM technology into mainstream applications where low-power and high-performance are of utmost importance,"

Cirrus Logic ARM Offering

Cirrus Logic's highly integrated ARM-based chip solutions, which fully leverage the company's mixed-signal expertise, are at work in set-top boxes, smartphones, network computers, handheld digital assistants and modems. Customers include RCA-Thomson, Psion, Philips, Zenith, Samsung, Aiwa, Funai, Acer, Elsa, Siemens, Jaton and ActionTec among others.

"We have made significant advances into the emerging Web-based information appliance market with our ARM-based system-on-a-chip solutions," said George Alexy, senior vice president of marketing for Cirrus Logic. Porting additional world-class embedded operating systems to our successful ARM-based solutions provides us with a distinct competitive advantage and enables us to deliver the industry's most comprehensive hardware and software ARM-based solutions to emerging markets."

Cirrus Logic offers the most highly-integrated ARM-based solution (PS7500FE) for the Internet appliance market. The PS7500FE is at the heart of most ISP-neutral Internet appliances being marketed by the world's largest consumer appliance vendors and has become the de facto standard for ISP-neutral, Web-enabled applications such as set-top boxes and network computers. In fact, RCA Thomson, the world's largest TV manufacturer, selected the PS7500FE to power its award winning NC1020 Internet TV appliance.

In addition, Cirrus Logic broadened its ARM-based product line by introducing the industry's first sub-50mW system-on-a-chip solution (CL-PS7111) for low-power wireless voice/data communications products. Thanks to advanced power management technology, a PS7111-based system consumes one-half, to one-tenth the energy of competitive solutions making this solution ideal for battery-life-sensitive mobile applications such as smartphones, GPS receivers and two-way messaging products.

The PS7500FE and PS7111 are currently available with all 14 of the operating systems noted above.

Cirrus Logic

Cirrus Logic is a premier supplier of system-level integrated circuits that depend on high-performance mixed-signal processing. The company applies its system expertise to enable high-volume applications in data storage, networking, and multimedia for both computing and consumer electronics markets as well as ultra-precision data acquisition applications for industrial automation and instrumentation markets.

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Note to editors: New ARM O/S vendor quote sheet follows.

Cirrus Logic is a registered trademark of Cirrus Logic Inc. All other product names noted herein may be trademarks of their respective holders.

What Our O/S Vendors Are Saying

Wind River Systems, Inc. (WIND)

"Wind River and Cirrus Logic now have the opportunity to provide OEMs with a very effective approach to the development of embedded devices based on the ARM-technology. Moreover, it allows Wind River to expand its award winning Tornado Development Environment to Cirrus Logic's high-volume ARM platform."

Dave Sheaffer, director of semiconductor relations at Wind River Systems, Inc.

Sun Microsystems (SUNW)

"The majority of telecommunications providers worldwide depend on ChorusOS to deliver the mission-critical real-time performance and powerful scalability required to empower entire product lines, from complex public switches all the way to smart hand-held Internet access devices. We are pleased to work with Cirrus Logic to provide a customized, dependable ChorusOS ARM platform that supports the next generation of embedded products."

Michael Gien, chief technology officer for Sun Microsystems' embedded systems software division.

Microtec (MENT)

"Mentor Graphics' Microtec Division is pleased to bring the capabilities of VRTXmc RTOS and XRAY Debugger to the Cirrus Logic ARM-based chip solutions. Microtec's VRTXmc is ideal for small-footprint, low-power applications, while XRAY provides multi-processor debugging. These capabilities directly support the telecom and networking applications that Cirrus Logic's ARM solutions address".

Andrew Barnes, manager, market development at Mentor Graphics' Microtec Division

Integrated System Inc. (INTS)

"ISI is highly committed to offering customers the broadest tool selection within the most integrated development environment in the marketplace. By merging our pRISM+ and pSOS framework with Cirrus Logic's solutions, we believe that this agreement offers an outstanding set of software choices to designers targeting ARM technology."

Joe Addiego, ISI's vice president of marketing.

JMI Software Systems

"JMI Software Systems, Inc., has supported the ARM architecture for over two years, and we are pleased to add support for the highly-integrated ARM implementations from Cirrus Logic. JMI will offer both its basic C language kernel, C EXECUTIVE, and also its mid-level POSIX extension, PSX." C EXECUTIVE is currently used with the ARM architecture in cardiac monitors, cellular telephone technology, wireless router, and handheld instruments.

Ed Rathje, president of JMI Software Systems, Inc

Embedded Systems Products

"Partnership with Cirrus Logic allows Embedded System Products, Inc. to provide the best in full source code, royalty-free kernels to a broad spectrum of developers using ARM-based chips. RTXC for ARM has a footprint as small as 6.3 Kbytes and a maximum interrupt latency of about 6 microseconds, which make it the perfect real-time embedded companion to Cirrus Logic's high- performance integrated circuits. Developers with cost-sensitive applications find RTXC's lack of any royalty fees especially advantageous in keeping production costs low."

Tom Barrett, president, Embedded System Products, Inc