SAN JOSE, California, April 27 /PRNewswire/ --

Atmel(R) Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML) announced today its AT88SA family of
lowest cost, ultra low power, secure cryptographic authentication ICs. The
first device in the family, the AT88SA102S, is a general purpose
CryptoAuthentication(TM) (http://www.atmel.com/products/cryptoauthentication)
IC designed to protect consumers from counterfeit electronic and medical
consumables, such as batteries, ink cartridges, test strips, blood bags,
breathing tubes, and others. They can be used to secure network transmissions
such as satellite radio broadcasts or medical records or any other kind of
logical data such as firmware or media.

Modern MCU based systems typically use nonvolatile memory to store
firmware/software. CryptoAuthentication provides a low cost way to ensure
that the stored code is authentic as well as protect downloads from snooping
or modification. For systems using AVR(R) and ARM(R) microcontrollers that
include AES (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard)
encryption engines, CryptoAuthentication provides the ideal secure key
storage solution.

Industry's Only Authentication IC with SHA-256.

Atmel's AT88SA devices are the industry's most secure authentication ICs,
with an embedded SHA-256 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA_hash_functions)
engine. The 256-bit cryptographic key size allows more possible keys than
there are atoms in the sun, making it essentially impossible to crack using
brute force methods. In contrast, the nearest competing authentication IC has
a key size of only half the bits. The AT88SA102S includes 23-bits of
one-time-programmable fuses that can be used for personalization, status, or
consumption logging and a guaranteed unique 48-bit serial number. The device
has a high speed single wire interface that is compatible with all
microcontrollers, using either a hardware UART or bit manipulation firmware
on a single GPIO pin.

Authentication. Authentication is based on a "challenge/response"
protocol between the microcontroller host and client. The host could be a
portable power tool, printer, medical test equipment, or even a satellite
radio transmitter. The corresponding client could be the battery used in the
power tool, an ink cartridge, a medical consumable, or a satellite radio. In
the case of an ink cartridge or medical consumable, the microcontroller in
the printer or medical device can prevent system operation if the "client" is
not authentic, and allow normal system operation for authentic clients. In
the case of data, such as a broadcast to a satellite radio, the host uses the
256-bit value of the SHA-1 digest as the session encryption key for the radio
transmission, based on a random value sent along with the data. Only an
authentic client-radio containing an AT88SA102S programmed with the correct
secret will be able to translate the random number to the session key
properly to decrypt the transmission.

Ultra-low Power Consumption. Authentication ICs spend most of their time
active, so sleep mode power consumption is the most important power
consumption metric. With sleep mode power consumption of less than 100
nanoamps (nA), Atmel's AT88SA CryptoAuthentication ICs have virtually no
effect on system battery life. The part supports a wide supply voltage range
of 2.5V to 5.5V, and an even wider 1.8V to 5.5V communications voltage range.

Easy System Integration. In order to speed system design, Atmel provides
complete source code libraries for the AVR microcontroller which implements
all necessary cryptographic modules to perform the host-side authentication
capability. The chip requires only a single pin on the host processor and
only three wires on the connector to the consumable plus a standard bypass
capacitor for a low overall BOM impact.

Availability and Pricing. The AT88SA102S CryptoAuthentication IC is
available now in production quantities in a 2.9mm x 2.1mm footprint,
green-compliant (exceeds RoHS) 3-pin SOT-23 package. Priced at US$0.66 in
quantities of 100 units, it is 40% to 60% less expensive than any
authentication IC on the market.

Atmel will introduce additional AT88SA family members during 2009.

About Atmel

Atmel is a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of
microcontrollers, advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory and radio
frequency (RF) components. Leveraging one of the industry's broadest
intellectual property (IP) technology portfolios, Atmel is able to provide
the electronics industry with complete system solutions focused on consumer,
industrial, security, communications, computing and automotive markets.

(c) 2009 Atmel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Atmel(R), Atmel logo and
combinations thereof, Everywhere You Are(R), and AVR(R) others, are
registered trademarks, CryptoAuthentication(TM) and others are trademarks of
Atmel Corporation or its subsidiaries. Other terms and product names may be
trademarks of others.

Information. More information can be found at http://www.atmel.com.

    Press Contacts:
    Helen Perlegos, Public Relations
    Tel: +1-408-487-2963, Email: Helen.Perlegos@atmel.com

    Sharon Harnisch, Marketing Communications
    Tel : +1-719-540-1723, Email : Sharon.Harnisch@atmel.com