Government ID, Smart Cards, Identification and Authentication

Atmel to sell Smart Card business

Monday, February 1, 2010

Microcontroller provider Atmel announced that its smart card business located in Rousset, France and East Kilbride, UK is up for sale, pending a comprehensive review of alternatives for its business.

The company also announced that it intends to discontinue sale discussions for its customer specific products and aerospace businesses.

Atmel’s sale of its wafer fabrication business in Rousset to Germany’s LFoundry GmbH, announced in December, is still on track, pending approval from French employee representatives of the Works Council in Roussetand.

Atmel’s ASIC business is a provider of high performance customer specific integrated circuits and security solutions to the industrial, aerospace and consumer markets operating in three branches: smart cards, customer specific products and aerospace.

Atmel has been pursuing strategic alternatives for the ASIC business and related manufacturing assets as part of its ‘transformation plan,’ which is aimed at focusing on the company’s high-growth and high-margin businesses. [end] 

Related Articles
Report: Security driving smart card industry

A new report from ABI Research reveals that the security sector is driving growth in the smart card industry, according to esecurityplanet.com.

“New revenues are coming from contactless/dual-interface cards and more applications require the greater security offered by smart cards. There remains a small, but solid, memory-based market, but higher-end secure microcontroller ICs and embedded solutions are driving the new growth. As a result of this and re-stocking inventory, we forecast that IC revenues will grow nearly 14% in 2010,” said ABI Research analyst John Devlin.

read more »
Atmel's unveils secure microcontroller certified for e-passport applications

Atmel Corporation today announced that FIME, an independent third party laboratory, has certified the Atmel AT90SC28880RCFV secure microcontroller (MCU) as compliant with ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) Radio Frequency Specifications and ISO 14443 RF.

read more »
Atmel sells smart card division to INSIDE Contactless

U.S. chipmaker Atmel has announced it has signed a definitive agreement to sell its ASIC division based in France and the UK to INSIDE Contactless, according to EE Times India.

read more »
Audio from August 25 IAB meeting online now

The August meeting of the influential Government Smart Card Interagency Advisory Board (IAB) was recently held in Washington D.C. FIPS201.com was on hand to cover the event and has provided, as a service to the IAB and the smart card community, an audio recording of the presentations. Click on the link below to access a list of audio and accompanying PowerPoint slides (in pdf format).

read more »
Datastrip supplies handheld biometric to Techno Brain

Datastrip has announced it has partnered with Tanzania-based information technology company Techno Brain to sell the EasyVerify mobile solution in the African market. The Easy Verify’s comes installed with contactless smart card and fingerprint reading capabilities and the option to expand into face and iris recognition.  

read more »
Atmel announces proposed sale of SMS business to INSIDE Contactless

Atmel Corp., a microcontroller and touch solutions provider, announced that France’s INSIDE Contactless has offered to purchase its Secure Microcontroller Solutions (SMS) business based in Rousset, France and East Kilbride, UK. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

read more »

Copyright © 2010, AVISIAN, Inc. All rights reserved.