Atmel Adds 4K EEPROM to Its secureAVR Smart Card IC Family for Static/Native OS Banking Applications

ROUSSET, France, June 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Atmel(R) Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML) is pleased to announce today the introduction of its AT90SC6404R secureAVR microcontroller. The AT90SC6404R, having 64K ROM 4K, EEPROM and 2K RAM has been developed and fully certified for banking applications to meet the growing demand for state-of-the art products for EMV(TM) 2000, as banks migrate to chip card solutions to satisfy the liability shift requirements announced by Visa and MasterCard. EMV 2000 is the banking industry specification, owned by EMVCo. EMVCo, LLC, was formed in February 1999 by Europay International, MasterCard International and Visa International to manage, maintain and enhance the EMV Integrated Circuit Card Specifications for Payment Systems.

The AT90SC6404R has been granted MasterCard CAST and Visa Level 3 security approvals. In addition the product has been certified to Common Criteria EAL4 Augmented level (EAL4+), with vulnerability assessment AVA_VLA.4, which corresponds to today's highest proven resistance against any security attack.

The product has also been assessed as part of MasterCard's new Card Quality Management (CQM) program and has obtained its CQM approval and label, together with other Atmel smart card ICs.

Ian Duthie, Atmel's Smart Card IC Marketing Manager, commented, "The popularity of the secureAVR 8-bit/16-bit RISC family with our main customers is proven again with this introduction. We have already received several production orders for credit and debit banking applications from our leading customers, with more due in the next few months."

Steve Mitchell, Atmel's Director of Security & Risk Management added, "The design and security features of the secureAVR architecture has helped us streamline our process, enabling shorter times for attainment of 3rd party certifications, such as EAL4+, Visa L3 and CAST, helping us and our customers bring new products to market faster. The stringent security requirements of the banking sector, means many approval stages and lengthy time to market. The introduction of a fully approved IC can help significantly to shorten the process."

Typical volume pricing is US$0.85 for 100K units, supplied as die on sawn wafer.

About Atmel

Founded in 1984, Atmel Corporation is headquartered in San Jose, California with manufacturing facilities in North America and Europe. Atmel designs, manufactures and markets worldwide, advanced logic, mixed-signal, non-volatile memory and RF semiconductors. Atmel is also a leading provider of system-level integration semiconductor solutions using CMOS, BiCMOS, SiGe and high-voltage BCDMOS process technologies.

NOTE: Atmel, AVR, the Atmel logo and combinations thereof are registered trademarks and others contained herein are trademarks of Atmel Corporation. Terms and product names in this document may be the trademarks of others.

Information:

For more information on the AT90SC6404R and the secureAVR(TM) product family, please visit Atmel's website at http://www.atmel.com/products/SecureAVR

Press Contacts: Carine Bourgon, Smart Card ICs MarCom Manager, Tel: + 33 4 42 53 60 52 Email: [e-mail] Veronique Sablereau, Corporate Communications Manager - Europe, Tel [phone] Email: [e-mail] Clive Over, Director of Public Relations - USA and Asia, Tel: [phone] Email: [e-mail]

/Web site: http://www.atmel.com /

Atmel Corporation