Atmel Announces $200 Million Addition to Stock Repurchase Program

SAN JOSE, Calif., May 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Atmel® Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML), a leader in microcontroller and touch solutions, today announced that its Board of Directors has authorized an additional $200 million allocation of funds to its existing $500 million common stock repurchase program.

Of the company's previously authorized $500 million program, to date the company has repurchased approximately $489.4 million, or 49.9 million shares, of its common stock at an average price of $9.80.

"The addition of another $200 million to our current program reflects our confidence in the continued growth of our company and the fundamental strength of our business model," said Stephen Cumming, Atmel's Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

The program authorizes the purchase of Atmel common stock in the open market, through privately negotiated transactions, accelerated stock repurchase programs or through other methods, including yield enhancement strategies, structured financial instruments and other derivative methods linked to the company's equity prices, at such times as management may determine to be in the best interests of the company and its stockholders, depending upon market conditions and other factors.  The program does not have an expiration date.  The number of shares repurchased and the timing of repurchases will be based on the level of cash balances, general business and market conditions, regulatory requirements and other factors, including alternative investment opportunities.

About Atmel
Atmel is a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of microcontrollers, capacitive touch solutions, 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 industrial, consumer, security, communications, computing and automotive markets.

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Safe Harbor for Forward-Looking Statements
Information in this release regarding Atmel's business outlook, expectations and beliefs are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements may include comments about our future operating and financial performance, including our outlook for 2012, our expectations regarding market share and product revenue growth, and Atmel's strategies. All forward-looking statements included in this release are based upon information available to Atmel as of the date of this release, which may change. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results could differ materially from our current expectations. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, without limitation, general economic conditions (including solvency issues affecting various European countries); the cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry; the inability to realize the anticipated benefits of transactions related to acquisitions, restructuring activities or other initiatives in a timely manner or at all; the impact of competitive products and pricing; disruption to our business caused by our increased dependence on outside foundries; industry and/or company overcapacity or undercapacity, including capacity constraints of our independent assembly contractors; timely design acceptance by our customers; timely introduction of new products and technologies; ability to ramp new products into volume production; industry wide shifts in supply and demand for semiconductor products; financial stability in foreign markets and the impact of foreign exchange rates; adverse changes in tax laws; unanticipated costs and expenses or the inability to identify expenses which can be eliminated; the market price or volatility of our common stock; compliance with U.S. and international laws and regulations by us and our distributors; ability to protect our intellectual property rights; litigation (including intellectual property litigation in which we may be involved or in which our customers may be involved, especially in the mobile device sector), and the possible unfavorable results of legal proceedings; and other risks detailed from time to time in Atmel's SEC reports and filings, including our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2011, filed on February 28, 2012, and our subsequent Form 10-Q reports. Atmel assumes no obligation and does not intend to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Investor Contact:
Peter Schuman, Director of Investor Relations, 1-408-518-8426

SOURCE Atmel Corporation