Atmel and Polaroid Demonstrate Biometric and Smart Card ID Solutions.

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)l Corporation (NASDAQ: ATML) announced today, aation, card printing, biometric identification a fingerprint), as well as photo ID and other information. Anyone who wants to participate in the demonstration may enroll at Polaroid's Booth 466. There they will receive a photo printed ID card that includes a digitized version of his/her fingerprint stored in the smart card's memory. The card holder may then proceed to Atmel Booth 546 where he/she will be asked to insert the smart ID card and have their actual fingerprint read using Polaroid's PFS-100 fingerprint imaging system jointly developed by Polaroid and Atmel. The PFS-100 system compares the card holder's actual fingerprint against the fingerprint stored in the smart card to verify the holder's identify. Cardholders whose identities are verified against their cards will receive a gift. Show attendees are encouraged to test the system by using other people's cards, as well as their own.

Biometric identification, such as that provided by finger images or facial recognition software, is virtually infallible because the cardholder's ID is tied to his/her unique physical characteristics. The information stored on the card is protected by circuits inside the cards themselves that perform encryption/decryption of the data on the card. The tiny smart card circuits in Polaroid's ID cards are actually integrated circuits, called smart card ICs, supplied by Atmel Corporation.

Atmel's smart card ICs are acknowledged to be some of the most secure designs available in today's market with the ability to perform critical encryption/decryption tasks within the card and able to securely identify the system or person reading the card, thereby virtually guaranteeing that sensitive personal information will never be written to or leave the card undetected or without authorization. This system is ideal for driver's licenses and other forms of identification.

Philip J. Scarfo, Vice President of Polaroid's Biometrics Systems said, "We all use cards for identification. The drivers' license has been the core of most identification systems worldwide for decades. The security requirements of the future require a much higher level of physical verification and attention to increasingly sophisticated fraud and electronic 'hacking'. Smart ID cards provide this ultra high level of security in the familiar ID card format everyone is used to.

"Polaroid leads the secure identification market, currently producing digital driver's licenses in California, Texas, Georgia and West Virginia in the U.S., and internationally providing identification documents for governments in more than 60 countries including Brazil, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, Russia and China. Collectively, our systems worldwide currently hold more than 250 million image and fingerprint records --arguably more than the FBI.

"The newest biometric smart ID cards from Polaroid and Atmel provide significantly greater ID security at a very low cost. We expect the biometric IDs to become a world wide ID standard in the next few years. "Scarfo concluded.

Alex Giakoumis, Senior Adviser to Atmel commented, "Frost and Sullivan estimates that the market potential for smart ID cards alone is estimated by analysts to easily exceed $1 billion by 2003.

"We've all heard stories about underage kids getting fake IDs," Giakoumis noted. "Smart ID cards can absolutely prevent this problem. However, the real issue relating to personal identification in today's society are identity theft, check fraud, and internet e-commerce fraud. To solve these problems, the public and authorities need to be able to spot counterfeit identities quickly and cheaply. Individuals equally need to be able to protect their privacy and identity. The secure ID solutions we are demonstrating today that use secure data in conjunction with digital imaging and biometrics provide the absolute security required in today's environment."

The CardTech/SecureTech conference is being held in Chicago, Illinois, at the Chicago Convention Center, in McCormick Place South. Atmel is located in Booth 546 and Polaroid is located in Booth 466.

Founded in 1984, Atmel Corporation is headquartered in San Jose, California with principal manufacturing facilities in Colorado Springs, Colorado, 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.

The new AT88SC1608 smart card IC provides 17,408 bits of serial EEPROM memory organize device is optimized as a secure memory system d password attempts counters.

Polardware, software and media; secure identification systems; graphics imaging systems; sunglasses and polarizers to markets worldwide.