ARC Helps STEC's New MACH4 Compact Flash Capture HD Multimedia Content at Twice the Speed Of Competitive Offerings

• New ARC-Based™ MACH4 CompactFlash SSD Delivers 80 MB/s;
• Affords Professional Video Equipment A High Capacity Alternative to Hard Drive

SAN JOSE, Calif., and ST. ALBANS -- England, March 3, 2008 -- ARC International today announced that STEC Inc. (Nasdaq: STEC), a leading supplier of solid state drives (SSDs), has extended its existing relationship with ARC and taken a new license for ARC’s configurable technology.  The new license from a major flash memory supplier enhances ARC’s position as one of the leading suppliers in this growing market, which is forecast to surpass 1 billion units shipped per year according to Semico Research Corporation.   This latest STEC implementation of ARC’s configurable core is contained in STEC’s new MACH4 CompactFlash device.  Please see related news release dated February 26, 2008 from STEC for more information (http://biz.yahoo.com/pz/080226/137051.html).

Since 1994 STEC has been a leader in innovative solid state storage technology, with particular emphasis on high performance and high reliability.  STEC’s ARC-Based™ MACH4 enhances its SSD offering by providing CompactFlash storage with twice the data transfer rate (up to 80MB/s) of other CompactFlash devices.  This performance opens up a new opportunity with professional video equipment manufacturers, who have found hard drives a less-than-optimum storage media for high definition (HD) video.  HD video cameras now have an SSD replacement for hard drives, which provide comparable storage capacity, but are smaller, consume less power, have no mechanical vibration, and offer higher performance.

Patrick Wilkison, vice president of marketing and business development at STEC, said, “ARC’s configurable technology has enabled our engineering team to create a highly differentiated product that provides a more optimized computing platform to system OEMs.  The result is a solution that delivers higher value by greatly speeding access to stored digital and multimedia content.”

Bill Jackson, vice president of marketing at ARC International, said, “STEC is among our growing list of customers in the solid state storage market who recognize that providing superior performance to their OEM customers is the way to assure product success.  We applaud their ingenuity and ability to develop a unique and innovative ARC-Based solution.”   

Thriving CompactFlash Market

According to Semico Research, the availability of flash memory with very high storage capacities has spawned nothing short of a revolution in the way consumers and business people regard and access their data.  Semico expects this trend to continue.  As a result, the Phoenix AZ market research firm is forecasting that the Flash market will experience continued robust growth and by 2012 will ship 1.3 billion units with a market value of $19 billion.

About ARC International plc

ARC International is the world leader in multimedia subsystems and configurable CPU/DSP processors.  Used by over 140 companies worldwide, ARC’s configurable solutions enable the creation of highly differentiated system-on-chips (SoCs) that ship in hundreds of millions of devices annually.  ARC’s patented subsystems and cores are smaller, consume less power, and are less expensive to manufacture than competing products.