Atmel and AWAH System Extend Design Agreement to Systems-on-Chip based on Atmel's AT91CAP Customizable Microcontroller

Agreement Combines AWAH System's ASIC Design Expertise and Korea-based Customer Support with Atmel's AT91CAP Customizable Microcontroller

Rousset, France and Seoul, Korea -- September 3, 2007 -- Atmel® Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML) and AWAH System announced today an extension of their long-standing collaboration to develop systems-on-chip for their mutual clients, built around Atmel's CAP™ ARM®-based customizable microcontroller, with design expertise and Korea-based customer support from AWAH.

In terms of the agreement, AWAH will work with clients to transform their design specifications into netlists for the metal programmable portion of the AT91CAP customizable microcontroller, incorporating IP blocks licensed from Atmel's libraries of ARM-based peripherals and interfaces as required. AWAH will apply its long experience of ASIC system-on-chip design in order to optimize the performance of the device and minimize the design cycle time. The netlists will be validated on the AT91CAP emulation board by mapping them onto the built-in FPGA, before being transferred to Atmel for placement & routing, and metal programming of the AT91CAP platform.

Michel Le Lan, Atmel's Marketing Director for ASIC products, commented on the agreement, “Atmel and AWAH have an established track record of high-volume ASIC designs for top-tier Korean clients. This agreement builds on the success of our collaboration to extend our offering to medium-volume designs where the low NRE costs, fast design turnaround and affordable unit price of the CAP customizable microcontroller give us a competitive edge. We know that AWAH can provide a level of local-language support that will ensure the success of these joint projects.”

MG Kim, Director, AWAH System, commented, “The Korean SoC market has been picking up at a very fast pace, with a growing number of active ASIC developers. It is becoming increasingly competitive, both among IDMs and foundries. AWAH's solution is to satisfy clients with world-class design services, with commitments to on-time delivery and leading-edge process technology, for systems-on-chip based on ARM processors, embedded Flash memory and analog. A lot of customers in Korea are interested in Atmel's CAP solution, and we are getting numerous requests. We appreciate the energetic support from Atmel's ASIC division and hope to build on our success to date.”

Atmel's AT91CAP Customizable Microcontroller

Atmel's AT91CAP is an ARM® microcontroller-based system-on-chip with fast local memory, a wide range of industry-standard peripherals and interfaces, and a Metal Programmable (MP) Block that allows the designer to add custom logic. By combining the performance, density and low power consumption of the fixed portion of the device with the flexibility of the MP Block, CAP enables application-specific products to be developed in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of standard-cell ASICs, but at a unit price close to that of standard cell devices. CAP also offers superior performance, smaller form factor and lower power consumption at a unit price significantly lower than an MCU-plus-FPGA combination for the same functionality. CAP is fully supported with an emulation board, software development tools, operating systems and code modules to facilitate application software development.

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.

About AWAH System

AWAH System provides customers with design services at all levels as an Atmel ASIC Design Partner, starting from specification level to RTL design, including evaluation on FPGA, netlist generation, DFT, and place & route services.

Atmel Product Information:

Atmel's AT91CAP product information may be retrieved at http://www.atmel.com/products/AT91CAP/

AWAH System Product Information:

AWAH System's products and services are described at http://www.awah.co.kr/index.php