Atmel and AST Announce Collaboration for Systems-on-Chip Based on Atmel's AT91CAP Customizable Microcontroller

AST to Provide Design Expertise and Local Support for Mutual Clients

ROUSSET, France -- October 15, 2007 -- Atmel(R) Corporation and Advanced Semiconductor Technology Ltd. (AST), announced today a collaboration, based on Atmel's CAP(TM) ARM(R)- based customizable microcontroller that allows their mutual clients to develop systems-on-chip. In terms of the agreement, AST will work together with clients to transform their design specifications into netlists for the metal programmable portion of the Atmel AT91CAP customizable microcontroller.

Michel Le Lan, Atmel's Marketing Director for ASIC products, commented, "Our working agreement with AST enables us to extend the network of CAP expert design centers into the Middle East. Our long experience with AST gives us confidence that they will provide the same level of design expertise and close support to CAP customers in this strategic region as they have for many ASIC projects over the years."

"We're very pleased Atmel selected AST's highly experienced Design Center to support Atmel's CAP(TM), ARM(R) -based platform," said Eli Geva, AST's Director of ASIC Operations. "The CAP platform fills the gap between ARM subsystem standard, off the shelf solutions and the growing need for customization with a minimal cost investment."

Atmel's AT91CAP Customizable Microcontroller

Atmel's CAP(TM) is an ARM(R) microcontroller-based system-on-chip with fast local memory, a wide range of industry-standard peripherals and interfaces, and a Metal Programmable (MP) Block that allows the designer to add custom logic. By combining the performance, density and low power consumption of the fixed portion of the device with the flexibility of the MP Block, CAP enables application-specific products to be developed in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of standard-cell ASICs, but at a unit price close to that of standard cell devices. CAP also offers superior performance, smaller form factor and lower power consumption at a unit price significantly lower than an MCU-plus-FPGA combination for the same functionality. CAP is fully supported with an emulation board, software development tools, operating systems, code modules and a worldwide network of expert design centers to facilitate application software development. The CAP MP Block can be personalized with IP developed by the customer, by third-party design centers or from Atmel's extensive libraries.

About Atmel

Atmel is a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of microcontrollers, advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory and radio frequency (RF) components. Leveraging one of the industry's broadest intellectual property (IP) technology portfolios, Atmel is able to provide the electronics industry with complete system solutions focused on consumer, industrial, security, communications, computing and automotive markets.

About AST

Advanced Semiconductor Technology Ltd. (AST) is a privately held Israeli Corporation with affiliates in San Jose, California and in Iasi, Romania. Founded in 1986, the company provides ASIC Design Services and distributes Advanced Electronic Components and Design Automation tools to the Israeli Hi-Tech industry. The company is certified to the ISO9001:2000 QMS and prides itself for its high quality service to its customers.

Atmel Product Information:

Atmel's AT91CAP product information may be retrieved at http://www.atmel.com/products/AT91CAP/

AST Product Information:

AST's products and services are described at http://www.ast.co.il/products.php