Atmel and Gemplus Agree to Cooperate in the Promotion of GemCore Lite, an 8-Bit Microcontroller-Based Universal Smart Card Interface.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

Cartes 2000

Atmel Booth K50; Gemplus Booths I40, I48, J48

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 9th, 2000

Atmel Corporation (Nasdaq:ATML) announced today a cooperative agreement with Gemplus, to promote GemCore(R) Lite which integrates the T8xC5101 8-bit microcontroller from Atmel.

A newcomer in Gemplus' market-leading GemCore Chipset range, GemCore Lite offers set-top-boxes, mobile phones and PDAs manufacturers a unique opportunity to integrate quickly and easily a universal smart card interface into their devices. A major competitive advantage provided to GemCore Lite customers is that they will benefit from previous electronic commerce mandatory certifications received by GemCore architecture from EMV (Europay, Mastercard, Visa), ZKA (Zentraler Kre ditausschuss, for the German GledKarte e-purse system), Mondex, GIE Cartes Banca ires and Microsoft's Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) to name a few. Smart card based applications allow unrivalled security in electronic transactions and are thus perfect for e-banking, Internet shopping, mobile commerce or TV access control.

Gemplus recognized that the T8xC5101, a low-pin-count version of the standard 80C51 microcontrollers featuring 16 Kbytes OTP/ROM and 512 bytes RAM, fits perfectly for its GemCore Lite solution and helps to increase performance while saving space and reducing costs.

According to Vincent Prothon, marketing and business development manager for GemCore Products at Gemplus, "This cooperation will develop business for both companies in the fast growing smart card interface market. Gemplus' expertise in smart card and Atmel's knowledge of consumer and telecom market will help to develop and promote the right solutions at optimized costs, especially for set-top-boxes and mobile phones manufacturers."

Manish Vadher, Microcontrollers marketing director at Atmel Wireless & Microcontrollers, added, "This agreement is the successful result of a very close technical and marketing cooperation between our two companies. It represents a perfect example of the benefits that Atmel can bring to a long-term association with a world-class customer with its depth in technology and understanding of microcontrollers."

Based on this successful cooperation, Atmel Wireless & Microcontrollers has started the development of new microcontrollers for the next generation of GemCore Lite.

Both companies will exhibit at "Cartes 2000" show in Paris October 24-26 (Atmel booth K50; Gemplus booths I40, I48, J48).

About Gemplus

Gemplus (www.gemplus.com) is the world's number one provider of smart card based solutions for security, wireless and e-business applications. Offering consulting services, design, software, hardware, personalization and full implementation, Gemplus works with its customers around the world to deliver comprehensive, integrated and tailor-made smart card based systems.

The group's customers use Gemplus memory and microprocessor smart cards, smart contactless cards, electronic tags, smart objects and magnetic stripe cards to simplify and secure a wide range of applications. From Web based and mobile commerce to financial transactions, loyalty, transportation, education, healthcare, identity, pay TV and physical and logical access control, Gemplus provides intelligent end-to-end solutions that bring security, convenience and ease-of-use to millions of people worldwide.

Founded in 1988, Gemplus had sales of over 767 millions of Euro ($US 817 millions) in 1999, and employs almost 6,300 people in 17 manufacturing facilities, 7 R&D centers and 44 sales and marketing offices located in more than 37 countries.

About Atmel

Founded in 1984, Atmel Corporation is headquartered in San Jose, California with principal manufacturing facilities in Colorado Springs, Colorado; Irving, Texas; Grenoble, Nantes and Rousset, France; and Heilbronn, Germany. Atmel designs, manufactures and markets, on a worldwide basis, advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory and RF semiconductors. Atmel is also a leading provider of system-level integration semiconductor solutions using advanced CMOS, BiCMOS, bipolar and SiGe process technologies.

Reader's Contact

Veronique Sablereau Atmel Wireless & Microcontrollers 3, Avenue du Centre - BP 309 78054 St Quentin-en-Yvelines France

Information

Atmel Wireless & Microcontrollers product information may be retrieved at www.atmel-wm.com

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