Inside Contactless has agreed to acquire Atmel's Secure Microcontroller Solutions (SMS) business, based in Rousset, France and East Kilbride, UK.

The financing for the purchase is being provided by Inside's existing investors, led by Gimv and Sofinnova Partners, along with the French sovereign wealth fund, Fonds Strategique d'Investissement (FSI). Atmel is also to make an investment in Inside Contactless as part of the deal.

"Atmel's Secure Microcontroller Solutions business offers Inside the opportunity to acquire unique people, skills and technologies to reinforce our leadership in the smart card and secure transaction devices market," says Remy de Tonnac, chief executive officer of Inside Contactless. "Combining these businesses has the potential to be a game-changing event in the smart card industry. It will create a pure-play fabless semiconductor leader singularly focused on the secure transactions market."

According to de Tonnac, this combination will put Inside in a leading position to meet the growing global demand for solutions in the payments market, the emerging NFC mobile commerce market and the electronic identification market.

"The SMS product portfolio and market focus is highly complementary to Inside Contactless' current business," explains Steven Laub, Atmel's president and chief executive officer. "This deal should be beneficial to both the SMS employees and customers."

The purchase is expected to be completed during the third quarter of 2010.

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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TAZCARD: TazTag's multi-function NFC wallet is to be secured with an Atmel security module

Atmel and TazTag have announced they are collaborating on the development of all-in-one contactless solutions to store and protect personal data. As a first step, TazTag is using the Atmel AT98SC016CU turnkey security module in its TazCard, a secure multi-function NFC wallet the size of a thick bank card that incorporates a touch screen, fingerprint sensor and NFC, USB and ZigBee communications interfaces.

First announced at the CES show in January, the TazCard has the potential to be used in a wide range of applications including access control, ticketing, couponing and payment. A Java Software Development Kit is available for developers interested in exploring the possibilities.

"The choice of an Atmel security module became obvious when we decided to secure our nomad contactless smart object," says Eric Fouchard, CEO of TazTag. "The cooperation between a fingerprint sensor and the AT98SC016CU safely protects the access to personal data and the applications in the TazCard."

"Our AT98SC turnkey security solutions are the right choice when it comes to securing portable compact devices with energy constraints," added Olivier Debelleix, Atmel's marketing manager for embedded security. "We are excited to bring our security expertise to this original and modern communicating application."

Atmel also offers a Single Wire Protocol-compatible chip, the AT91SC464384RCU, for NFC SIMs.

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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