Atmel, CNES and ESA Sign 3-Year Agreement to Develop Next-Generation ICs for Space Applications.Business Editors/High-Tech Writers NANTES, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 5, 2000 Atmel Corporation (Nasdaq:ATML ATML Automatic Test Markup Language ATML Automated Test Markup Language ) today announced a 3-year agreement with the European Space Agency European Space Agency (ESA), multinational agency dedicated to the promotion, for exclusively peaceful purposes, of cooperation among European states in space research and technology. (ESA) and the French Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES CNES Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (French Space Agency) ) to develop the next generation of integrated circuits dedicated to space applications. The availability of state-of-the-art IC technology and products able to withstand space radiation and qualified at the required level of reliability is of strategic importance for the European space industry and its competitiveness in the next generation of communication, navigation and earth observation satellites Partial list of Earth observation satellites by series/program.
To ensure the existence of such a capability in Europe, the two major space agencies, ESA and CNES, have concluded with Atmel Europe -- a leader in aerospace ICs -- a 3-year agreement to develop a complete system-level integrated solution for data and signal processing under space conditions. These applications demand significant processing power (over 100 MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second) The execution speed of a computer. For example, .5 MIPS is 500,000 instructions per second; 100 MIPS is a hundred million instructions per second. ), fast memory and specialized libraries and Intellectual Property (IP) for space application needs. The development of such design capability will be undertaken in the framework of this program on the existing SPARC (Scalable Performance ARChitecture) A family of RISC CPUs from Sun that runs mostly under Sun's Solaris, but also under Linux and BSD operating systems. After development began in the mid-1980s by David Patterson of the University of California at Berkeley and Bill processors and on a new SPARC core (LEON) developed by ESA. Proven 0.25mu CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) Pronounced "c-moss." The most widely used integrated circuit design. It is found in almost every electronic product from handheld devices to mainframes. technology will be used to manufacture the product in Atmel's Rousset facility and adapted to attain the radiation hardening imposed by the space environment. The aerospace division of Atmel, operating from Atmel's Nantes facility, is involved in all major European satellite programs including SPOT/HELIOS, Envisat, Metop, DMSR DMSR Dance, Music, Sex, Romance (Prince song) DMSR De Matos Storey Ryan (UK architectural firm) DmsR Dromyosuppressin receptor dmsR dimethyl sulfoxide-responsive regulator and Globalstar, and has a successful track record over 20 years as a supplier of high-reliability ICs. "All the ingredients, technology, IPs, design methodology and users' involvement in validation, are in this program to ensure full System-on-Chip solutions from Atmel by end 2002," said Alain Dantec, Chief Executive Officer of Atmel Nantes S.A. "Many European programs already use Atmel products, and it is important for the future that competitive products are available for European Industry. It was with this in mind that a 3-year program for development of high-performance microprocessors and other products has been set up with Atmel," said R. Creasey, Head of the Control, Data and Power Division at the ESA. F. Linder, Deputy Head of Quality Assurance at CNES insists upon the importance for Europe to develop HIREL (Highly Reliable) microprocessors for its own space programs. About Atmel Founded in 1984, Atmel Corporation is headquartered in San Jose, California San Jose (IPA: /ˌsænhoʊˈzeɪ/) is the third-largest city in California, and the tenth-largest in the United States. It is the county seat of Santa Clara County. with six manufacturing facilities in the U.S.A. and Europe. Atmel designs, manufactures and markets on a worldwide basis advanced logic, mixed-signal, non-volatile memory, and RF semiconductors. Atmel is also a leading provider of system level integration semiconductor solutions using advanced CMOS, BiCMOS, BiPolar, BCDMOS and SiGe process technologies. Notes to Editors: Atmel, the Atmel logo and combinations thereof and others contained herein, are trademarks of Atmel Corporation. Terms and product names in this document may be the trademarks of others. Information Atmel Wireless & Microcontrollers product information may be retrieved at www.atmel-wm.com |
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