STMicroelectronics Receives CERN/ATLAS Award for Development and Production of Radiation-Hard Voltage Regulators

The ATLAS Supplier Award granted to ST recognizes cooperation and performance in the development of unique power-supply components for critical electronics.

Geneva, May 10,2006 - STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) has announced that the ATLAS Collaboration at CERN, the European Centre for Nuclear Research, near Geneva, Switzerland, and the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, has honored the Company with an ATLAS Supplier Award for the development and delivery of radiation-hard voltage regulators for use in CERN’s giant ATLAS experiment. The Award, which was presented in Geneva by Peter Jenni, leader of the ATLAS Collaboration, recognizes the close cooperation between ST and CERN in developing these unique devices, which are now also available on the open market as the RHFL4913 (positive) and RHFL7913 (negative) low drop voltage regulators for satellite and other aerospace applications.

ATLAS is one of the two large CERN particle physics experiment built to explore the fundamental nature of matter and the basic forces that shape the universe. Many important discoveries in physics have been made by examining the high-energy collisions of subatomic particles such as protons and neutrons. In the ATLAS experiment, protons will collide at record energies up to 7 TeV (7 trillion electron volts) per proton provided by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). ATLAS is one of the largest collaborative efforts ever attempted in the physical sciences, with 1800 physicists from more than 150 universities and laboratories in 35 countries participating. ST has delivered some 40,000 of the specially developed radiation-hard voltage regulators to the ATLAS project for use in the Liquid Argon Calorimeter front-end electronics, in the power distribution of the Pixel detector and TRT (Transition-Radiation Tracking detector), and in other sub-systems.

“We are very proud to receive an ATLAS Supplier Award, which underlines our ability to deliver products that operate reliably under such harsh radiation conditions,” said Carmelo Papa, Corporate Vice President of ST’s MPA (Micro, Power and Analog) Group which developed the devices when ATLAS scientists found that no voltage regulator was available on the market to satisfy their challenging technical requirements. These included the need to supply sufficient current reliably while operating in an hostile environment with very high levels of radiation. “The award is particularly satisfying because these unique products, essential for the ATLAS project, were the result of concurrent engineering work led by two R&D and product development teams,” added Papa.

The ATLAS Award citation draws attention to the technical challenges that ST had to overcome and acknowledges the Company’s contribution to this major project and notes that “without the contribution from ST it would have been extremely difficult to complete the liquid argon calorimeter front-end electronics and the ATLAS Collaboration expresses its sincere appreciation for ST’s enormous effort, warm cooperation, and excellent performance.”

About ST’s MPA Group (Micro, Power, Analog)
STMicroelectronics is a world leader in offering complete system solutions that leverage its rich portfolio of Microcontrollers, Power and Analog products; advanced process and design technologies; and application expertise. MPA’s emphasis on solutions allows the Company to minimize time-to-market for all customers worldwide in existing and emerging applications.

Further information about the ATLAS Collaboration can be found at http://atlas.ch.

Notes for Editors
* CERN’s specification called for low dropout voltage and low power consumption for efficient power management and for the IC to continue to perform in situations where optimum cooling cannot be provided. Additionally, the regulators had to allow the ability to monitor and remotely control static and dynamic overload conditions such as latch-up of power components. After preliminary tests on standard power technologies showed them insufficiently able to survive the substantial radiation created by particle collisions, ST’s engineers selected a bipolar technology based on the monolithic integration of complementary vertical NPN and PNP transistors. The resulting devices are the first Rad-Hard, low-drop voltage regulators of their type in the world, with the final hermetically-packaged devices able to withstand 300krad at 0.01rad/sec, sustain 200 trillion protons/square cm, and are guaranteed to be SEL-(Single Event Latchup) and SEU- (Single Event Upset) free.

* The RHFL4913 and RHFL7913 are now generally available in adjustable versions that can be set externally to output voltages between 1.23V and 9V, from a 12V input, as well as in fixed-voltage versions. The output current is up to 3A and the devices are available in a range of hermetic metal or ceramic side-braze packages. They are QML-V Qualified by DSCC (DefenseSupplyCenterColumbus, USA) and their robust construction, stable performance under adverse conditions, and radiation hardening make them highly suited to satellite applications.

* ST has contributed its expertise to a number of important CERN projects, including the ALTRO chip, which integrates 16 low-power Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADC) plus more than six million transistors of custom digital processing circuitry and around 800 Kbits of data memory.

About STMicroelectronics
STMicroelectronics is a global leader in developing and delivering semiconductor solutions across the spectrum of microelectronics applications. An unrivalled combination of silicon and system expertise, manufacturing strength, Intellectual Property (IP) portfolio and strategic partners positions the Company at the forefront of System-on-Chip (SoC) technology and its products play a key role in enabling today’s convergence markets. The Company’s shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange, on Euronext Paris and on the Milan Stock Exchange. In 2005, the Company’s net revenues were $8.88 billion and net earnings were $266 million. Further information on ST can be found at www.st.com.
Information last updated Jan 2006

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