ARC International - History

History

  • The roots of ARC International date back to the early 1990s. The company was founded by Jez San to build upon the 3D accelerator technology previously developed for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System by a division of Argonaut Software. This forerunner to the ARC was originally called the Mario (Mathematical, Argonaut, Rotation & I/O) chip and later dubbed the SuperFX. It went on to sell millions, at the time outselling ARM or any other RISC core.
  • Following the success of the SuperFX, its designers were split from the main company to a department called ATL (Argonaut Technology Limited). The design was renamed to ARC (Argonaut RISC Core) and marketed as a general purpose, configurable, microprocessor. Later, ATL has spun off as a separate company - ARC International. In 1995 Bob Terwilliger took over as ARC's first CEO. He created the company licensing strategy, commercialized the product including the acquisition of Metaware, VAutomation and Precise Software. He raised $50 million pre-IPO and took the company public in September 2000 raising an additional $250 million.
  • 21 September 2000, ARC listed on the London Stock Exchange as ARK.
  • 17 June 2002, ARC took over three companies, MetaWare, VAutomation, and Precise Software Technologies but later parts were sold off to other companies.
  • April 2007, ARC acquired Teja Technologies of San Jose, California, a specialist in heterogeneous multiprocessor software.
  • 14 June 2007, ARC acquired Tenison Design Automation of Cambridge, UK, a provider of software tools used to help develop system-on-chip (SoC) designs.
  • 23 September 2007, ARC acquired Alarity Corporation of St. Petersburg, Russia, that specializes in codec software, firmware, and advanced multimedia architectures.
  • 11 February 2008, ARC acquired Sonic Focus, a specialist developer of audio enhancement technology for digital sound.
  • 29 July 2009, ARC confirmed they were in discussions with a third party regarding an offer for the company.
  • 18 August 2009, Virage Logic Announces Intent to Acquire ARC International'.
  • 15 September 2009, Virage Logic Declares Offer to Acquire ARC International Unconditional in All Respects.
  • 5 November 2009, Virage Logic completes acquisition of ARC International.
  • 10 June 2010, Synopsys declares offer to acquire Virage Logic including ARC
  • 2 September 2010, Synopsys completes acquisition of Virage Logic

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