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Emosyn To Sell Xicor Smartcard ICs danbury, conn.-Emosyn, the fabless smartcard IC venture of Advanced Technology Materials, Inc. (ATMI), inked a sales alliance with Xicor making Emosyn the exclusive sales channel for Xicor IC products in chip or module for smartcard applications customers. As part of this agreement, ATMI has purchased from Xicor 1 million unregistered common shares at $4 per share. The purchase represents a 5 percent stake in the company. In 2001, ATMI has an option to purchase the rights to Xicor's Security IC Product line, for use only in smartcard applications. While the initial thrust by Emosyn will be on Europe, the agreement provides for expansion into other regions of the world if certain objectives are met. Xicor will continue to sell these products worldwide to all customers who focus on applications other than smartcards. Xicor and Emosyn will also jointly develop future IC products for the smartcard industry, to be manufactured by Xicor and sold by Emosyn.. According to Nicholas Wood, VP/GM of Emosyn, the addition of Xicor's product line expands the fledgling smartcard IC start-ups portfolio to include the mid- range applications-memory-only devices that are readable, but write- protected. At the high-end, Emosyn will soon roll out its Theseus product line, developed with EM Microelectronic (the semiconductor division of the Swiss watchmaker Swatch), available in the first quarter of 1999. This week, the fabless start-up takes its first step toward its Theseus rollout. The company is expected to unveil this Tuesday, Rania, its rapid development environment. Rania is a set of low-cost software development tools for smartcards for simulation, hardware acceleration, and instrumentation. The tools are designed to eliminate the need for extensive silicon-based testing. Emosyn believes Rania will help streamline development cycles for smartcard chips while allowing smartcard developers to continually define, refine, and enhance smartcard programs. The Rania Rapid Development Environment runs on Windows 95, 98, NT and 2000. The Rania is available to smartcard manufacturers at US $750 (single-user license) for the simulator module, and $3,000 for the hardware accelerator module. |