ARC claims ‘positive year’
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Configurable processor company ARC has had what it calls a year of record growth in 2006. Amongst highlights in the company’s annual report are revenues up by 28% to £13.4million, royalties up by 30% to £3.4m and revenue from Asian customers up by 239% to £3m.
Derek Meyer, senior vice president of sales and marketing, pictured, said: “It’s been a very positive year, with gains in licenses and royalties.”
According to Meyer, 137 companies have now licenced ARC technology, with 50% of license revenue coming from multimedia subsystems.
Meyer noted particular effort has been made to develop the multimedia subsystem business in the last two years. “We’ve done our own customisation, adding 105 instructions and customised software, then delivering the result as a turnkey package. But the package is still configurable by the customer.”
ARC is, potentially, poised to see licensing revenues rise in the coming couple of years. ARC has added 42 licenses over the last two years and Meyer said it generally takes ‘three or four years’ from closing a licensing agreement to seeing royalties. Currently, the company is seeing revenue flow from 40% of licensees.
ARC’s business is still dominated by North America, which generates 65% of revenues. Meyer said this is simply down to the number of fabless semiconductor companies in the US – and Silicon Valley in particular.
