Atmel® Corporation, the renowned organization in designing and manufacturing of microcontrollers and advanced logic announced here today that FIME, the highly reputed external and independent third party laboratory, has certified that Atmel's AT90SC12872RCFT secure microcontroller is compliant with ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) and ISO 14443 specifications (contactless interface for smart card).

Atmel, founded in 1984, is a renowned leader in the design and manufacture of microcontrollers, advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory and radio frequency (RF) components. The company through influencing one of the industry's broadest intellectual property (IP) technology portfolios, has been able to provide the electronics industry with complete system solutions. It is recorded as one of the minority elite new companies who are capable of incorporating dense nonvolatile memory, logic and analog functions on a single chip. The Atmel chips are manufactured through the usage of the most advanced wafer processes that includes BiCMOS, CMOS and Silicon Germanium (SiGe) technologies. It is also found to be concentrating on consumer, industrial, security, communications, computing and automotive markets.

On the other hand, FIM is an extensively trusted laboratory and is recognized throughout the international arena for its knowledge in module evaluation that is related to contactless applications and is an indispensable contestant in the ePassport test market. The FIME puts forward a complete range of test services for ePassport applications that is comprised of Layers A and 1 to 7 beneath the existing ICAO specifications along with the distribution of competent ePassport test benches along with its advocacy of the worldwide customers, who are known for the specific execution from the initial product specification to the commercial launch.

Xavier Giandominici the Business Development Manager for FIME speaking on this stated, "Atmel's AT90SC12872RCFT secure microcontroller was successfully qualified in FIME's new ePassport test environment under the ISO and ICAO compliance specifications. To ensure compliance under extreme conditions, FIME, with its new test environment, undertakes compliance testing in different temperature environments and at different data transfer rates; temperatures ranging from minus 10°C, room temperature to 50°C - and communications speeds of 106, 212, 424 and 848 kbps. Atmel's AT90SC12872RCFT secure microcontroller also complied with the durability tests performed by FIME according to the latest ICAO Durability of Machine Readable Passports v3.2." while Benoit Makowka, the Product Line Manager for ID and Banking products of Atmel stated, "The FIME report shows Atmel fulfills all technical requirements for ePassport and ID applications. Atmel's AT90SC12872RCFT chip is already Common Criteria EAL5+ certified and strong interoperability performance has already been proven during international plug test forums."