MEYREUIL, February 1st, 2012- StarChip®, expert in designing and qualifying Smart Card ICs, and CEA-Leti, the leading French semiconductor research institute, have signed an agreement to develop a Contactless Front End for Smart Card applications. The Contactless Front End is the result of Leti’s many years of expertise in Contactless and will enable applications such as Transport, Banking and Identity.

This partnership includes technology and know-how transfer to StarChip® to address all the aspects of the Contactless technologies. Innovative design architecture combined with accurate simulation tools are implemented to ensure the quality, interoperability and security of the Contactless Front End.

The combination of StarChip® expertise in secure IC development, industrialization and certifications with the CEA-Leti’s proven Contactless technology will allow StarChip® to bring to the market state-of-the art and very competitive Smart Card products to address Transport, Banking and Identity markets.

“StarChip®’s objective is to be a leading supplier for Smart Card market. The acquisition of Contactless technology and know-how from CEA-Leti is completing our technologies portfolio and will allow us to address all the Smart Card applications”, said Lucien Brau CEO and President of StarChip®. “We are glad to partner with very talented and experienced people like Leti’s people to bring to the market tailored solutions to Smart Card customers’ requirements”.

“Thanks to this collaboration, the CEA-Leti will bring to StarChip® the benefits of its more than ten years’ experience in contactless technology, in order to extend StarChip®’s product portfolio”, says Michel Durr, Program Manager in CEA-Leti. “This partnership is in complete adequacy with our strategy of creating innovation and transferring to industry”.

About StarChip®: (www.starchip-ic.com)
StarChip® is a dynamic semiconductor company that enables customers to directly benefit from its unique, optimized value chain system. We design and qualify products for mass production, then license our solutions for purchase directly by our customers through qualified foundries and test houses.
StarChip® products are based on state-of-the art, flash-based 32-bit architectures. They are designed to offer maximum integration, providing support for embedded, innovative security technologies, analog functionality, and connectivity and control interfaces. The result is a flexible set of solutions that can easily meet the requirements of a wide variety of markets, including smart card and security, consumer, automotive, and industrial applications.

About CEA- Leti:
CEA is a French research and technology organization, with activities in four main areas: energy, information technologies, healthcare technologies and defence and security. Within CEA, the Laboratory for Electronics & Information Technology (CEA-Leti) works with companies in order to increase their competitiveness through technological innovation and transfers. CEA-Leti is focused on micro and nanotechnologies and their applications, from wireless devices and systems, to biology and healthcare or photonics. Nanoelectronics and microsystems (MEMS) are at the core of its activities. As a major player in MINATEC campus, CEA-Leti operates 8,000-m² state-of-the-art clean rooms, on 24/7 mode, on 200mm and 300mm wafer standards. With 1,400 employees, CEA-Leti trains more than 190 Ph.D. students and hosts 200 assignees from partner companies. Strongly committed to the creation of value for the industry, CEA-Leti puts a strong emphasis on intellectual property and owns more than 1,700 patent families. Visit www.leti.fr.

StarChip® contact:
Hanène Maupas
Tel: +33 1 34 52 20 75
Mob: +33 6 78 11 47 80
Email: hanene.maupas[at]starchip-ic[dot]com
www: www.starchip-ic.com

CEA-Leti contact:
Michel Durr
Tel : +33 4 38 78 30 45
Email : michel.durr[at]cea[dot]fr

Distributed on behalf of STARCHIP by NeonDrum news distribution service (http://www.neondrum.com)