AMD and Wave Systems to Enable Advanced Security Features for Commercial and Consumer Computing - Company Business and Marketing

Edge: Work-Group Computing Report, April 3, 2000

AMD, a leading supplier of integrated circuits for personal and networked computers, and Wave Systems Corp., a provider of electronic commerce, content distribution and security services, Monday announced an alliance to integrate new security functions for commercial and consumer computing. These advanced functions will enable personal computers and emerging information access devices to assume a key new role for secure delivery of content such as music and video, as well as a full range of e-commerce transactions. Users will have a stronger set of tools to protect the privacy of their sensitive information such as electronic identity and credit card numbers. For the content industry, this will provide a major step forward to implement new distribution and buying models while providing protection of the intellectual property of artists, authors, and performers. For the corporate world, key new content protection features will provide enhanced security for documents as well as enable secure options for remote access, business to business virtual networks, and authenticated network logon.

"To participate fully in the next generation of e-commerce, personal computers and information access devices must provide a secure environment that protects digital Internet content delivered to both the home and office," said David Somo, AMD's Vice President of Marketing, Computation Products Group. "As a result, systems manufacturers must add important new functions for security and privacy to their platforms. With this agreement, AMD is taking a leadership role in delivering key technologies to enable the growth of digital content and e-commerce."

AMD and Wave Systems will work jointly to incorporate Wave's Trusted Client architecture as a core component of PC motherboards and other platforms. This will add new functionality including new user privacy options, distributed e-commerce and transaction capability, and a programmable security hardware infrastructure. The extended functionality will be based on an evolving standard for PC platform security being created by the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA). Both AMD and Wave Systems participate in the TCPA, which is an industry alliance focused on hardware and software specifications to enhance security and trust of the PC platform. Over the past year, Wave has been working with many of the important industry leaders to develop an open industry standard referred to as the Embedded Security Application System (EMBASSY) based on Trusted Client architecture.

"We are committed to using the TCPA specification as a building block for an open programmable Trusted Client Architecture as we move forward," states Gregory Kazmierczak, Vice President, Technology, Wave Systems Corp. "The EMBASSY System is a robust platform capable of flexibly supporting a wide range of security and privacy standards as they evolve. Wave is shipping versions of their Trusted Client Architecture in peripheral devices, but believes that ultimately this functionality should be a fully integrated component of computing platforms. AMD plays a pivotal role in bringing this functionality to home and business computing."

After successfully integrating the security functions, AMD will include this new functionality into some commercial and consumer motherboard reference designs - AMD's "blueprint" for PC motherboards given to PC manufacturers. These future AMD reference designs will include specifications on how and where Trusted Client technology can be integrated into PC motherboards in an effort to standardize and deploy Trusted Client technology as an open systems specification.

The extended set of capabilities enabled by the Trusted Client architecture are aimed at delivering a wide range of new content and services to users. By using any high speed network and Wave's Trusted Client Architecture, consumers can take advantage of a number of new distribution and buying models for content including rent to own, pay-per-view, as well as free trials of full function software, games, music, and videos. Businesses will benefit from enhanced security in the use of emerging net-based tools such as ASP (Application Service Provider) software delivery.

"Monday's announcement is a very important step in Wave's strategy to deploy a network of Trusted Client devices," said Steven Sprague, CEO, President and COO, Wave Systems Corp. "By including Wave's Trusted Client architecture as the basis of security in the PC motherboard reference design, AMD is incorporating a fundamental building block of future PCs and information access devices. I'm very confident in our ability to work together to evolve these devices into a central point of trust and transaction in the digital economy."

Additional information and a white paper on the EMBASSY "trusted client" are available at http://www.wave.com.

AMD is a global supplier of integrated circuits for the personal and networked computer and communications markets. AMD produces processors, flash memories and products for communications and networking applications. AMD processors, including the AMD-K6-2 and AMD Athlon product families, power computers manufactured by nine of the Top 10 computer manufacturers worldwide. AMD's mobile processors are used in more than 50 percent of notebook computers sold in the retail market to consumers and small businesses. Founded in 1969 and based in Sunnyvale, California, AMD had revenues of $2.9 billion in 1999. (NYSE: AMD).