Artisan Components, Inc., a provider of physical intellectual property (IP) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, the semiconductor foundry, today announced an agreement regarding Artisan's IP support of SMIC's 0.15-micron CMOS process.

In addition to the 0.18-micron agreement announced in January of 2003, this agreement extends the relationship of SMIC and Artisan. SMIC commits to providing designers with solutions for advanced process technologies.

The agreement will allow Artisan's large user community to access SMIC's 0.15-micron process technology through Artisan's proven IP platform. The platform includes a selection of advanced SRAM, ROM and register-file generators as well as Artisan's SAGE-X Standard Cell Library. The 0.15-micron platform conforms to the Artisan design standard and will be delivered with Artisan's extensive set of views and models in support of industry leading EDA tools. Artisan plans to distribute the products under its Access Library Program on a worldwide basis at no charge to licensed design teams. Front-end views for Artisan's 0.15-micron SMIC platform are expected to be available in the second quarter of 2004.