Phoenix Technologies and Atmel Collaborate to Create Next-Generation Security Solutions for PCs
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MILPITAS, Calif. and SAN JOSE, Calif., March 4 -- Phoenix Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ:PTEC) and Atmel® Corporation (NASDAQ:ATML) today announced the integration of Atmel's FingerChip® biometric security solutions in Phoenix FailSafe(TM) and SecureCore Pre-boot Authentication (PBA) products.
This first cooperative design effort between the two industry leaders provides for significantly stronger multifactor authentication and enhanced security and is designed to bring superior security solutions including theft-deterrence and tracking for mobile PCs. Phoenix FailSafe, a built-in theft-deterrence platform for next-generation laptops, will enable secure, remote tracking of fingerprint sensor data in the event of laptop theft/loss. Phoenix SecureCore PBA integrated with Atmel's FingerChip biometric solutions provides for biometric user authentication at the pre-boot level, providing higher levels of security, since fingerprints demand a user's presence and cannot be shared, stolen or written down.
Atmel offers a very high performance, robust and competitive range of fingerprint-based biometric solutions for PC platforms, based on Atmel's patented FingerChip Fingerprint sensors. These solutions offer industry leading image quality, biometric performance and security. Phoenix SecureCore PBA requires a user to authenticate identity before the computer boots up. It also enables user authentication from core systems software (also known as BIOS or firmware) to the operating system directly, to achieve single sign-on into the Windows® O/S environment.
"Combining FingerChip solutions with the Phoenix products provides an added layer of security which is vital for many enterprise and consumer markets demanding increased security and privacy for stored data and logical access," said Bruno Charrat, Director for Atmel Biometrics Business Unit. "Our collaboration with Phoenix Technologies ensures the highest level of secure authentication -- an increasingly important factor for any PC user. Moving forward, we expect to see other collaborative initiatives by Atmel and Phoenix, dedicated to bringing the best-in-class security solutions to the PC market."
"Our work with Atmel to integrate their fingerprint sensors in our FailSafe theft-deterrence platform enables an additional layer of tracking methodology for mobile PCs. We not only want to provide critical next-generation functionality to our PC OEM customers but also embed certain features that will deter laptop theft," said Surendra Arora, Vice President of Business Development at Phoenix Technologies. "Additionally, our PBA collaboration with Atmel will ensure that our EFI and UEFI-based SecureCore BIOS continues its feature-set dominance in the industry."
About Phoenix Technologies
Phoenix Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ:PTEC) is the global market leader in system firmware that provides the most secure foundation for today's computing environments. The PC industry's top builders and specifiers trust Phoenix to pioneer open standards and deliver innovative solutions that will help them differentiate their systems, reduce time-to-market and increase their revenues. The Company's flagship products, AwardCore, SecureCore, FailSafe and HyperSpace, are revolutionizing the PC user experience by delivering unprecedented security, reliability and ease-of-use. The Company established industry leadership with its original BIOS product in 1983, has 155 technology patents and 139 pending applications, and has shipped in over one billion systems. Phoenix is headquartered in Milpitas, California with offices worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.phoenix.com/
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.
Contacts
Phoenix Technologies:
Shauli Chaudhuri, VP Marketing
Tel : +1 408 570 1060
E-mail: public_relations@phoenix.com
Cedric Vanhaver,
GlobalFluency/Neale-May
for Phoenix Technologies
Tel : +1 650 433 4154
Email : phoenix@globalfluency.com
Atmel:
Nancy Moore,
Marketing Communications Manager
Tel: +1 719 540 3262,
Email: nmoore@cso.atmel.com
Helen Perlegos,
Public Relations
Tel: +1 408 487 2963,
Email: hperlegos@atmel.com
FCMN Contact: Shauli_Chaudhuri@Phoenix.com
Source: Phoenix Technologies Ltd.
Web site: http://www.phoenix.com/
