Atmel Chip Gives OEMs the Ability to Build a Secure TCPA-Compliant Personal Computer or PDA

The First TCPA Security Module to Ship in a Production Personal Computer

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 23, 2002--Atmel® Corporation (Nasdaq:ATML - News) announced today the availability of a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) which is fully compliant with the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA) specification. The AT97SC3201 chip gives OEMs the ability to easily add robust hardware security to a personal computer or PDA. It is fully qualified and currently shipping in select models of IBM®'s new T30 high-end notebook computers. This single chip turnkey solution permits very high levels of security and interoperability while maintaining exceptional user convenience and privacy.

"Our customers now identify security as one of their most important issues, exceeding even e-commerce and Internet presence," says Clain Anderson, program director of security solutions, IBM Personal Computing Division. "Businesses must protect sensitive data while simultaneously exchanging it with their customers, suppliers, vendors and partners. The Embedded Security Subsystem has been helping do this for three years in IBM personal computers, based on work with Atmel as well as industry-wide standards established by the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance."

The AT97SC3201 is the lowest cost hardware security mechanism currently available for PCs -- no external tokens, readers, boards or special keyboards are required. Soldered on the computer motherboard, it forms a secure vault where digital IDs can be safely stored away from every type of virus. These digital IDs can then be used to secure a wide range of communication channels from VPNs to email to web access. They support strong encryption of files on the hard disk, and provide a mechanism for a network server to not only reliably identify the computer that is requesting access but to also verify that the BIOS running on that system is the correct and valid one.

"We are excited about the wide range of applications, both in the PC space and in many other types of systems, where the TPM can be used." said Kerry Maletsky, division director at Atmel. "The combination of an industry standard specification that has been widely reviewed, third party certification of the security level and delivery including all the on-board firmware already written by Atmel simplifies the integration of security into a system. Developers of PCs, PDAs, POS terminals, set top boxes, network appliances and many other systems can easily add world-class security to their systems."

A data sheet for the AT97SC3201 is available under NDA. Pricing is $5.00 in volume. The products are shipping now.

About TCPA

Atmel is a member of the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance, or TCPA. This alliance was formed by Compaq, HP, IBM, Intel and Microsoft. All five companies have been individually working on improving the trust available within the PC for years. These companies came to an important conclusion: the level, or "amount", of trust they were able to deliver to their customers, and upon which a great deal of the information revolution depended, needed to be increased and security solutions for PC's needed to be easy to deploy, use and manage. An open alliance was formed to work on creating a new computing platform for the next century that will provide for improved trust in the PC platform.

About Atmel

Founded in 1984, Atmel Corporation is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., 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.

Information

Information on Atmel's AT97SC3201 may be retrieved at http://www.atmel.com/acrobat/2015s.pdf. For more information on TCPA please visit www.trustedcomputing.org.

Note to Editors: Atmel, the Atmel logo and combinations thereof and others contained herein, are trademarks of Atmel Corporation. IBM is a trademark of IBM-Lotus. Terms and product names in this document may be the trademarks of others.

     Atmel
     Kerry Maletsky, 719/540-1848
     (Director of Secure/ASIC Marketing)
     kmaletsky@cso.atmel.com
     Vicki McCann, 719/540-1724
     (Marketing Communications Manager/USA)
     vmccann@cso.atmel.com
     Veronique Sablereau,  +33 1 30 60 70 68
     (Corporate Communications Manager/Europe)
     veronique.sablereau@atmel.com