• Settlement charges.

Settlement charges related to legal settlements undertaken in connection with actual or anticipated litigation, or activities undertaken in preparation for, or anticipation of, possible litigation related to intellectual property, customer claims or other matters affecting the business that are generally not reflective of ongoing company performance or ordinary course of litigation expenses.

• Non-GAAP tax adjustments.

In conjunction with the implementation of Atmel's global structure changes which took effect January 1, 2011, the company changed its methodology for reporting non-GAAP taxes. Beginning in the first quarter of 2011, Atmel's non-GAAP tax amounts approximate operating cash tax expense, similar to the liability reported on Atmel's tax returns for the current period/year.  This approach is designed to enhance the ability of investors to understand the company's tax expense on its current operations, provide improved modeling accuracy, and substantially reduce fluctuations caused by GAAP adjustments which may not reflect actual cash tax expense. 

Atmel forecasts its annual cash tax liability and allocates the tax to each quarter in proportion to earnings for that period.

SOURCE Atmel Corporation