Atmel Introduces a New High-End Smart Card Secure Microcontroller Based on the ARM SC100 CPU core

New technology opens new opportunities for SIM/USIM card manufacturers and network operators

Rousset, France - November 18th, 2003 - Atmel® Corporation (NASDAQ: ATML), announced today the introduction of the AT91SC25672RC, a new high-end smart card secure microcontroller based on the ARM® SecurCore™ SC100® CPU core.

The AT91SC25672RC features an outstanding on-chip compact ROM program memory of 256 Kbytes and a flexible 72-Kbyte EEPROM for data. Occupying less than 20 square millimeters, this product is perfectly suitable for the cost-sensitive high volume smart card market and provides all that is necessary for high-end smart card applications where security and fast computation are required. The AT91SC25672RC low-power consumption makes it compliant with mobile phone requirements.

Wide memory space, powerful 32-bit RISC core and large RAM working memory (10-Kbytes), in combination with a hardware accelerator, make this product particularly suitable for JavaCard™ implementations.

Benoit Makowka, Atmel's Marketing Manager for mobile phone smart card ICs, stated, "With this product, Atmel offers a new technology capability opening up new opportunities for single or multiple simultaneous application SIM/USIM cards. Our customers can now benefit from all of the advantages offered by this technology to develop applications for GSM and 3G network operators without constraint in terms of performance or security, such as in m-commerce or m-banking."

Bruce Beckloff, marketing Director, ARM said "The combination of Atmel's dense non volatile memory technology and its design expertise in secure products, along with high-performance/high-security ARM SC100 microprocessor cores, offers one of the most efficient solutions for new developments in the smart card industry."

Complete sets of documentation and development tools are available and the first ROM codes are already accepted for bulk production.

Typical volume pricing is $4.00 for 100K units.

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, nonvolatile 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.

© Atmel Corporation 2003. All rights reserved. Atmel, the Atmel logo and combinations thereof are registered trademarks, and others contained herein, are trademarks of Atmel Corporation or its subsidiaries. ARM is a registered trademark of ARM Limited. SecurCore and SC100 are trademarks of ARM Limited. All other brands or product names are the property of their respective holders. "ARM" is used to represent ARM Holdings plc (LSE: ARM and Nasdaq: ARMHY); its operating company ARM Limited; and the regional subsidiaries ARM INC.; ARM KK; ARM Korea Ltd.; ARM Taiwan; ARM France SAS; ARM Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd.; and ARM Belgium N.V. Terms and product names in this document may be the trademarks of others

Information

Atmel's AT90SC25672RC product information may be retrieved at:http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/product_card.asp?part_id=2605