Dublin, Ireland - May 15, 2001 - Parthus Technologies plc
(Nasdaq: PRTH, LSE: PRH), a leading provider of platform-level
semiconductor intellectual property (IP), today announced the launch and
immediate availability of MachStream, the industry's most power efficient
application acceleration platform using hardware-based JIT technology.
MachStream's patented acceleration engine supports complex
processor-intensive mobile Internet applications, such as multimedia,
browser languages and Java, at a fraction of the battery power consumption
by moving these applications into high performance, power efficient
silicon.

The MachStream platform is based on patented technology gained through
today's acquisition of Chicory Systems based in Austin, Texas, a leading
provider of application acceleration IP. As an acceleration platform,
MachStream is notable in that it improves the power efficiency and
performance of a broad spectrum of processor-intensive mobile Internet
applications, including:

Processing of digital imaging, including JPEGs, GIFS, PNG etc.

Complex open software applications, such as Java

Wireless browser/scripting languages for Internet applications, including
XHTML and XML

Mobile
multimedia, to include MPEG-4 video streaming and MP3 digital music

MachStream is also designed to seamlessly accelerate applications
running on a variety of wireless operating systems and standards,
including Symbian's EPOC and emerging applications based on Microsoft's
Stinger environment. Devices such as next generation PDAs/Smartphones,
web-enabled phones, gaming consoles and wireless tablets utilizing
MachStream can process Java applications instantaneously, while saving
over 95 percent of the battery power consumed by the processor. On a
typical mobile Internet-connected PDA, applications run dramatically
faster (between 10x and 35x), information is updated on-the-fly and
battery life is extended up to ten-fold.

"MachStream will become a powerful component of Parthus' semiconductor
IP strategy," said Max Baron, principal analyst at Cahners In-Stat and
editor-in-chief of MicroDesign Resources. "With the next generations of
mobile phones evolving to provide browsing, Java and multimedia
capabilities, consumers will demand significantly increased processing
speed and the battery life of today's mobile phone. As functionality
increases in 2.5G, 3G and beyond, these new devices will have to deliver
an optimal balance of performance, power consumption and cost. MachStream
is a significant step in the right direction."

MachStream's performance is derived from the configuration of its
breakthrough silicon engine that contains two patented acceleration
technologies. 'Mach I' is a silicon-based JIT (just-in-time) code
translation and optimization accelerator, while 'Mach II' is a
hardware-based data pre-processing engine. Both Mach I and Mach II share
the common MachStream engine. MachStream attaches to popular RISC and DSP
architectures as an intelligent peripheral device and requires no
modification to the processor architecture or layout. Initial
implementations are optimized for the family of ARM processors but the
technology is inherently processor independent.

"We believe that MachStream is a critical technology for next
generation mobile devices. It will enable us to balance the consumer's
demand for advanced multimedia and Internet applications with the
requirement for devices that are low cost, small size, light weight and
have extended battery life," said Kevin Fielding, president of Parthus.
"Through the acquisition of Chicory we have secured technology that is a
key enabler of next generation mobile Internet devices. The addition of
MachStream perfectly complements our portfolio of platforms designed to
power tomorrow's mobile Internet, allowing us to deliver the total IP
solution to the world's leading semiconductor companies and handset
manufacturers."

Mike Muller, CTO of ARM welcomed the announcement, saying: "It is our
intention to establish the ARM processor architecture as the de facto
standard for Java enabled products. The ARM partnership is committed to
addressing the wide range of Java enabled products with best in class
solutions based around the ARM architecture, both from ARM Ltd. and from
close partners like Parthus."

About MachStream

The MachStream platform is a modular, silicon-based intellectual
property engine that dramatically boosts the performance and significantly
decreases the battery power requirements for multiple aspects of the
wireless applications environment. MachStream moves
computationally-intensive portions of the mobile Internet applications
infrastructure into high performance, low-power silicon.

Unique Features of MachStream include:

Multi-application acceleration - By utilizing advanced JIT
(just-in-time) technology the MachStream engine can contain multiple
silicon accelerators, each aimed at speeding and saving battery power for
a wide range of wireless applications, including:

Wireless browsers/scripting languages (cHTML, XHTML, XML or
WML-based)

Complex open
software applications (Java)

Mobile
multimedia (various media applications)

Streaming
media (streaming video)

Single-chip capabilities - The MachStream engine can be easily
integrated into a system by attaching it to a standardized hardware
interface. The engine is designed to be implemented along with the main
processor as a single-chip solution, but can also be implemented as a
second chip or even integrated within a memory controller or other
device

Power consumption and performance - MachStream's advanced JIT
technology takes long streams of Java byte codes and compiles them in real
time into highly optimized streams of native instructions. Recent
benchmarks have shown that Java performance is boosted by up to 35x. This
unique low power implementation consumes less than 0.1Mw/ MHz at 1.5 volts
- only when actively translating and optimizing Java byte code streams.
Studies show that battery power used for running Java applications is
improved by almost ten-fold in a Smartphone systems deployment. In
addition, no operating system or application modifications are required to
take advantage of the platform's acceleration capabilities

Hardware and software - MachStream is available as a
synthesizable RTL core in VHDL or Verilog formats. Customer-specified
formats will be provided as required. A reference implementation and
accelerated demo applications are available for evaluation

Cost and time-to-market - MachStream delivers minimal
incremental cost increases by combining ultra small silicon size with the
integration of the IP into the system SoC. This approach allows developers
to take full advantage of shared resources through a single architectural
platform

Mach I & II acceleration - Code translation and data and
media pre-processing - The MachStream platform uniquely combines code
translation and optimization, and data/media pre-processing to attack
power consumption and processing speed from two angles.

Mach I - Code stream translation and optimization of
applications written in open standards and processed and stored in
hardware: e.g. Java accelerator

Mach II -
Media/data preprocessing of application-specific file types: e.g. PNG,
JAR and MPEG

About Chicory Systems

Chicory Systems is a semiconductor intellectual property (IP) provider
based in Austin, Texas. Chicory Systems has developed an advanced
technology for accelerating Internet applications by migrating complex
systems software into high-performance silicon. The company's products
address the performance and power requirements of handheld computing
devices running applications for the emerging mobile Internet environment,
as well as accelerating the performance of other devices such as set top
boxes and smart cards. Chicory Systems is venture-backed and the company
was incorporated in October 1999. In its first full year of operations,
Chicory Systems reported a loss of approximately $1.3 million.

About Parthus

For further information About ParthusCeva,
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A PDF copy of this press release is also available
here.

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