Atmel Achieves Industry's First Common Criteria Security Certification for Flash Smart Card IC.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 27, 2001

Atmel(R) Corp. (Nasdaq:ATML) announced today that it has confirmed Flash technology as a secure medium for smart card ICs by obtaining security certification under the ISO15408 standard, more familiarly known as Common Criteria. The EAL 1 augmented certification level has been granted on Atmel's AT90SC6464C, an 8-bit RISC secure AVR Microcontroller, having 64K bytes of Flash program memory and 64K bytes of EEPROM. Atmel is the world's top supplier of Flash Microcontrollers and is now the first semiconductor vendor in the world to achieve an independent certification on a Smart Card microcontroller having Flash program memory.

This is Atmel's second Common Criteria certification this year, and is a building block of Atmel's security strategy leading towards a portfolio of independently certified products to Common Criteria EAL4 augmented or equivalent on all its smart card IC families. Early this year, an EAL4 augmented certification was granted on Atmel's AT05SC HC05 based platform, confirming its expertise as a leading vendor of high security smart card ICs. This security expertise is being implemented on all new products destined for high security applications, including but not limited to banking, e-commerce, health cards, government issued ID cards, PC secure access, etc., where assurance and trust are paramount for acceptability.

"The technology advantage of our 8-bit RISC AVR core and our Flash technology in the smart card market, while well accepted by our leading customers, means little to bankers and government officials unless supported by independent certification. Common Criteria is now recognized internationally as one of the key approval standards therefore it is Atmel's strategy to deliver no less when developing products for these high security applications," explained Lucien Brau, division director of Atmel Smart Card ICs.

Atmel's family of secure microcontrollers, which is used in a variety of applications from banking to health cards, has already received approval from bodies such as ITSEC, VISA and G.I.E. Cartes Bancaires in France. Since achieving these earlier certifications, Atmel has continuously developed its products to meet the latest security and application demands.

Brau commented, "We believe that formal security evaluation with agreed international standards is extremely important because it provides customers with a measurable standard. This certification demonstrates to our customers that our Flash Smart Card ICs offer more than flexibility and time to market; they also bring confidence built on security."

About the Certification

The Common Criteria harmonizes ITSEC (The European Information Technology Security Evaluation Criteria), CTCPEC (Canadian Criteria) and US Federal Criteria (FC) into the Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation (CC) for use in evaluating products and systems and for stating security requirements in a standardized way. Increasingly it is replacing national and regional criteria with a worldwide set accepted by the International Standards Organization ISO15408. ISO15408 security evaluations are performed by independent, accredited Evaluation Facilities licensed by an appropriate Certification Body. In France, where this evaluation was performed, the Certification Body is DCSSI (Direction Centrale de la Securite des Systemes d'Information), a government organization that reports to the National Defense General Secretary. The AT90SC6464C evaluation was carried out by CEACI, The THALES Microelectronics evaluation center, based in Toulouse and the certification was awarded by DCSSI.

For more information of the certificate: http://www.scssi.gouv.fr/fr/confiance/certificats.html.

About Atmel

Founded in 1984, Atmel Corp. is headquartered in San Jose 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, bipolar SiGe, and high-voltage BCDMOS process technologies.

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