Toshiba America Electronic Components (TAEC), Toshiba's U.S. subsidiary to sell semiconductors, has announced to incorporate a new company that develops microcontrollers with the CPU core of "Emotion Engine" microprocessor. Emotion Engine is a microprocessor for PlayStation2 and "TX79" is the product name of the CPU core. To be located in San Jose, California, the new company's name is ArTile Microsystems. The company will be engaged in introducing diversified usage for TX79-based microcontroller other than video games, such as network equipment, digital set-top box, digital TV and multimedia devices.

ArTile Microsystems will kick off with a staff of thirty, with plans for increasing the number to 200 by 2004. TAEC originally had a microprocessor development division in San Jose and ArTile is a spin-off of this division. Projected sales of ArTile are US$250 million in 2004. NULL