ARM to acquire Falanx

“The graphics market for mobile, automotive and home applications, is increasingly important to ARM due to the rapidly growing usage of electronic devices with graphics capabilities; the estimated total available market for embedded 3D hardware is set to grow from 135m units in 2006 to more than 435m units in 2010*,” said Mike Inglis, EVP, Marketing and Business Development, ARM. “The acquisition of Falanx will enable us to build upon our existing graphics activity and to drive the adoption of feature-rich, multimedia embedded solutions with a complementary ecosystem for developers.” Falanx develops graphics accelerator IP and software for semiconductor system-on-chip (SoC) vendors that deliver high-quality multimedia images without compromising performance, power consumption or system cost. The acquisition fits the ARM strategy of enabling users to create SoCs seamlessly in their design process. The Mali™ Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) is a combination of hardware and software that enables industry-leading 3D graphics and video on mobile phones, portable media players, set-top boxes, handheld gaming devices and infotainment systems (including automotive). “Adding the Mali graphics technology to the ARM® portfolio will enable more integrated solutions for SoCs in multimedia rich embedded applications,” said Borgar Ljosland, CEO, Falanx Microsystems AS. “Mali graphics IP is complementary to ARM technology, and through this acquisition we will be able to deliver power-efficient OpenGL ES 2.0 solutions.” Falanx will become a new Graphics IP Business Unit within ARM, and will be led by Pascal Peru as general manager.