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Atmel Expands its Ultra-low Power Microcontroller Offering with Three New picoPower AVR MCU's

      San Jose, CA, September 13th 2006  

AVR picoPower Technology Extends Battery Life with Sleep Power Consumption
at 100 nA in Power-Down and 650 nA with Real Time Counter Running

    Atmel® Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML), announced today three new AVR® microcontrollers with incorporated power-saving technology that provides multi-year battery life in lighting control, security, keyless entry, ZigBee™ and other applications that spend a significant amount of their time in sleep mode. The picoPower™ technology reduces "power-save" power consumption to as little as 650 nA, even with the 32 kHz clock running and superior brown-out detection, the industry's lowest RTC sleep power consumption.

    The three picoPower devices now available are the ATmega164P, ATmega324P and ATmega644P 44-pin general purpose microcontrollers. All three microcontrollers are pin and feature compatible, differing only in the size of Flash, EEPROM and SRAM memory. ATmega164P has 16 KB of self- programmable Flash program memory, whereas the ATmega324P and ATmega644P have 32 KB and 64 KB, respectively. All three devices feature a 10-bit ADC, two USARTs, SPI, Two-Wire-Interface and operate from 1.8 to 5.5 volts with up to 20 MIPS throughput.

    AVR picoPower microcontrollers consume as little as 340 uA in active mode, 650 nA in power-save mode with real time counter (RTC), and 100 nA in power-down mode. They will be pin-, performance- and code-compatible with existing AVR microcontrollers.

    "Very low power consumption is becoming mandatory in a wide variety of applications," stated Ingar Fredriksen, Director of Product Marketing, AVR products. "This is obviously important for battery-powered applications, but also non-battery applications can benefit from lower power consumption as this allows smaller and lower cost power supplies. To further strengthen the AVR microcontroller's position as an ultra-low-power device, we are now upgrading many of our high-volume products to picoPower technology, enabling the industry's lowest power RTC sleep power consumption. The systems for which we developed picoPower share one attribute; they spend most of their time in sleep mode. Saving a few nanoAmps in sleep mode power consumption can add years to the battery life of the end-product. Atmel has focused on eliminating or drastically reducing the power drain from oscillators, brown-out detectors, I/O pin leakage and the like to achieve the lowest power MCUs on the market," Fredriksen concluded.

    Atmel's picoPower technology utilizes a variety of innovative techniques that eliminate unnecessary power consumption in power-down modes. These include an ultra-low-power 32 kHz crystal oscillator, automatic disabling and re-enabling of brown-out detection (BOD) circuitry during sleep modes, a power reduction register (PRR) that completely powers down individual peripherals, and digital input disable registers that turn off the digital inputs to specific pins.

    Pricing and Availability
The ATmega164P and ATmega324P in 40-pin PDIP, 44-pin TQFP and 44-pin QFN packages are available now for sampling. Production quantities will be available in 4Q 2006. Volume prices for 10ku are $2.23 for ATmega164P and $2.78 forATtiny324P respectively.

    ATmega644P will be available for sampling in 1Q 2007 and production quantities in 2Q 2007. Volume prices for 10ku will be $3.72

Atmel Announces Second Generation Voice Over IP Chip for Wi-Fi Based Phones

      San Jose, CA, September 13th, 2006  

    Atmel® Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML) formally announced today its second generation Voice over IP (VoIP) chip, designed for 802.11a/g wireless VoIP applications. The AT76C902 runs the VoIP Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) stack, uCLinux™ operating system software, and firmware enabling 802.11a/g (Wi-Fi®) and voice compression and decompression all on a single chip. The AT76C902 consists of an ARM946™ processor for VoIP call control, authentication and signaling functions, and two subsystems - an ARM7™ and 802.11a/g Media Access Controller (MAC) that implements the 802.11a/g protocols, and a TEAK TeakDSPCore™ and integrated voice codec for voice processing functions. Additionally, hardware security accelerators offer on-the-fly encryption, decryption and authentication support for AES, DES/3DES and TKIP, supporting WPA and WPA2 - Personal and Enterprise. Based on this architecture, as well as engineering focus on power consumption, the AT76C902 is able to achieve world-class talk and stand-by times.

    Atmel's AT76C902 supports Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM) and WMM Power Save modes. WMM adds Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities to Wi-Fi networks. WMM Power Save is an improvement to the 802.11e amendment adding advanced power management functionality to WMM. WMM Power Save is based on Unscheduled Automatic Power Save Delivery (U-APSD), which, like WMM, is based on Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA). U-APSD is a solution well suited for dynamic environments where Wi-Fi is generally deployed and allows clients supporting U-APSD to download all or some of the frames buffered by the access point during unscheduled service periods. By supporting U-APSD and Scheduled APSD (S-APSD), solutions based on Atmel's AT76C902 have talk times of over six hours and stand-by times of over 220 hours on a 900 mA battery. This is achieved even when the access point it is connected to does not support WMM APSD.

    The best solution for customers requiring high-quality voice, stable performance and the longest talk/standby times in the market (for a given battery size) is to deploy AT76C902-based Wi-Fi phones along with Atmel's AT76C520-based access points. If a WLAN exists and the access points cannot change, then the AT76C902 terminals will produce the best results. Phones based on Atmel's AT76C902 have been tested in-house against all the access points within the Wi-Fi test plan and interoperate with no issues. If the terminals are deployed and they support APSD but the access points can be replaced, the AT76C520 will produce the best results for the existing terminals.

     "Atmel is very excited about the introduction of this chip. The AT76C902 has been very well received in the market and has been selected by several major Tier-one OEM makers," said Richard Bisset, Product Marketing Director of Atmel's Multimedia and Communications Product Group. "Because of its architecture, the AT76C902 provides the ability to perform multiple functions that would otherwise not be able to be performed by a single-CPU-based processor. By moving to the uCLinux operating system software, we are able to provide our customers a feature-enriched software package in source code format without any licensing or royalties."

     To facilitate quick time-to-market and reduce engineering costs, a complete development kit (AT76C902-DK) including Atmel's AT76C902 VoIP processor, AT76C517.11a/g baseband, flash memory and the Airoha single-chip 802.11g RF transceiver with integrated Power Amplifier (AL2236) is available to qualified customers. The AT76C902-DK also includes a miniature-sized module design containing all critical sections of a stand-alone wireless VOIP phone. Included with the kit are complete schematics, bill of materials, a reference design, Gerbers and software. The VoIP SIP stack is licensed from Radvision® (announced on May 15, 2006). Other software provided is the firmware for the 802.11a/g, the voice codecs and the uCLinux operating system.

    Price and Availability
The AT76C902, packaged in a 208-pin BGA, is released to production. Pricing for the AT76C902 starts around $18 at 25K units

Atmel Introduces a Cost-Optimized Smart Card Reader IC for USB Keyboards

      Nantes, France, September 12th, 2006  

    Atmel® Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML) announced today the release of the AT83C22OK106, a smart card reader product targeting USB smart card keyboard. The AT83C22OK106 was developed in partnership with OMNIKEY®, a major smart card reader manufacturer.

    The new AT83C22OK106 is an updated and optimized version of the previous AT83C22OK. It includes 8051 core, USB interface, and ISO7816 UART smart card interface, as well as a high- efficiency DC/DC converter. Therefore, it is compliant with the major smart card standards such as EMV & PC/SC. It supports 5 V, 3 V and 1.8 V cards regardless of the input voltage. The AT83C22OK106 is designed to provide a solution for a reader system with only a few additional external components mounted on a single sided PCB.

    Arnaud Ruchon, Product Marketing Manager for Smart Card Reader ICs at Atmel stated, "The AT83C22OK106, combined with the state-of-the-art firmware developed by OMNIKEY, is a unique solution for keyboard manufacturers. It allows them to implement a keyboard with smart card functionality in less than two weeks." He added, "Thanks to its optimized size, the AT83C22OK106 allows us to be even more price competitive."

    The firmware supports all types of smart cards with high baud rates up to 433 kbits/s with full CCID compatibility and includes BIOS support. Keyboards up to 160 keys using any OEM specific keyboard matrix are supported. Furthermore, the firmware features a common criteria certified secure PIN-entry functionality.

    According to Kurt Schmid, Chief Executive Officer from OMNIKEY, "Thanks to its complete set of features and its reduced price, the new version of the AT83C22OK will help to win new smart card reader businesses in the keyboard area. Atmel and OMNIKEY partnership offers the best solutions for the keyboard OEM market."

    Pricing and Availability
The AT89RFD-02 reference design kit is available, for $250, to facilitate a PCB design. Included is a reference board, software, and all required documentation.

The AT83C22OK is available now in QFP64 and QFN64 packages. Pricing in 10k unit-quantities is $ 2.60 USD.

Atmel 推出經過成本優化、用于 USB 鍵盤的智能卡讀卡器

      September 12 , 2006  

    美通社-FirstCall 法蘭西南特9月12日電 Atmel® Corporation（納斯達克交易代碼︰ATML）今天宣佈，推出針對 USB 智能卡鍵盤的智能卡讀卡器產品 AT83C22OK106。該產品是與大型智能卡製造商 OMNIKEY(R) 合作開發的 ... more

Atmel Launches Industry's First Automotive Load Driver IC in SOI Technology

      September 11 , 2006  

Improved EMC Performance and Maximum Reliability at Less than 1 Dollar

    Heilbronn, Germany, September 11th, 2006. . . Atmel® Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML), a global leader in the development and fabrication of advanced semiconductor solutions, announced today the availability of the new ATA6826 driver IC, the first such product in high-voltage BCD-SOI technology (SMARTIS™) available on the market. The new driver IC provides improved performance, a broad range of protection features, and a very attractive price. The ATA6826 is designed to control two DC motors or up to three different loads via a microcontroller in automotive applications, e.g., body electronic systems such as mirror positioning and climate control. Thanks to the device's high voltage capability (up to 40V), the ATA6826 can also be used in 24V supplied trucks or industrial applications.

     In contrast to standard BCDMOS bulk technology, the SMARTIS technology uses an SOI (silicon on insulator) substrate. This results in an extremely low leakage current. A significant reduction in crosstalk between power and digital circuits on the same die is achieved, and lower parasitic effects give added value for EMC performance. The chip size reduction - the gate density is equivalent to 0.5-μm CMOS - allowed the design of a cost effective and powerful high voltage power driver IC. The SMARTIS technology also reduces manufacturing costs by simplifying the IC fabrication process through the elimination of high energy implementation for well doping and simplification of device isolation.

     Each of the three high-side and three low-side drivers of the ATA6826 is capable of driving currents up to 1A. The drivers are internally connected to form 3 half-bridges and can be controlled separately from a standard serial data interface. Therefore, all kinds of loads such as bulbs, resistors, capacitors, and inductors can be combined. The IC design especially supports the application of H-bridges to drive DC motors. The operation modes forward, reverse, brake, as well as the high impedance will be controlled by the SPI interface.

     The ATA6826 provides several protection features such as overtemperature warning and shutdown, overload, overvoltage protection, and full protection against short circuits. Several diagnostic bits are set in the SPI output register and can be read by the microcontroller. In case of undervoltage at the supply pin, the power-supply fail bit in the output register is set and all outputs are disabled. If the overtemperature pre-warning bit is set, the system developer can implement software routines on the microcontroller to decrease the power dissipation and temperature. If the temperature increases further, the IC shuts down at a certain level to prevent destruction. The device also meets strict automotive qualification demands (protection against conducted interference, EMC and ESD protection) and can withstand transients as specified in ISO/TR 7637.

     Samples of the ATA6826 driver IC are available now in Pb-free SO14 packages with pricing starting at US $0.97 for 100k-piece quantities. An application board for development support can be ordered for US $131. Additional driver family members with enhanced features like PWM control and also devices for high-temperature applications of up to 150 degree Celsius ambient temperature will be introduced in Q4/2006.

     Footnote
        BCDMOS = Mixed-signal technology with Bipolar, CMOS and DMOS components
        EMC = Electro Magnetic Compatibility
        ESD = Electronic Static Discharge
        PWM = Pulse Width Modulation
        SOI = Silicon On Insulator technology

Atmel 推出業界首個使用 SOI 技術的汽車負載驅動積體電路

      September 11 , 2006  

    EMC 性能提升且可靠性最大化，價格不到1美元 ... more

Power Integrations榮獲美國國家能源效率獎

      September 14 , 2006  

    Power Integrations To Receive National Energy-Efficiency Award

    Power Integrations榮獲美國國家能源效率獎

    該公司因提供可使電子產品減少能源浪費的解決方案而獲此殊榮

    美國加利褔尼亞州聖荷西2006年9月12日 –EcoSmartR節能技術的發明廠商Power Integrations, Inc (OTC: POWI)，獲全國節約能源聯盟(Alliance to Saving Energy)頒發2006年 節能之星獎章(Star of Energy Efficiency)。Power Integrations是今年三家獲獎公司中唯一的科技公司，而該公司致力增進電子產品的能源效率以減少電源浪費也持續獲得肯定。此一獎項於9月12日全國節約能源聯盟在華盛頓特區所舉行的年度黑領帶(black-ties)頒獎晚宴上，頒給該公司的總裁暨執行長Balu Balarkrishnan，這場晚宴並有50名美國參眾議員與會。

    Power Integrations 採用EcoSmartR節能技術的IC是用於電源供應器中，該元件能夠把來自牆壁插座的高伏特AC電源轉換成符合多數電子產品要求的低伏特DC電源。EcoSmart節能技術能透過電源供應智慧地管理電流(flow of power)，不僅可大幅減少在正常作業中所需消耗的能源，更可減少最高達97%的standby電源消耗。Standby電源是電子產品在閒置(idle)時所發生的電源消耗，一般估計此一部分的電源消耗佔了非營業電力使用量(residential electricity usage)的10%。

    自1998年起，Power Integrations已經賣出超過11億片採用EcoSmart節能技術的IC，估計已為消費大眾和企業節省了約十八億美元的電費支出，同時減少了一千兩百萬噸的二氧化碳排放量。目前有許多電子產品都使用了Power Integrations的IC，包括：消費性電子產品、家電產品、手機充電器、電腦設備和工業用電子產品等等。

    聯盟總裁Kateri Callahan表示：「本聯盟很高興能頒發2006年節能之星獎章給Power Integrations，Power Integrations的EcoSmart節能技術能在不增加消費性產品的成本和改變消費者行為之下，每天節省超過一百萬美元以上的能源浪費。EcoSmart節能技術正是創新技術協助我們解決能源問題的絕佳範例。”

     「獲頒此一獎項對Power Integrations是一項無上的殊榮。」 Balu Balakrishnan表示，「 EcoSmart節能技術在市場上的成功已經證明了對於製造商和消費者而言，能源使用效率的提升是很容易達到且極具成本效益的。我們對此一技術可為消費者與環境帶來的益處感到十分榮幸，同時我們也很高興Power Integrations能獲選頒發能源效率之星這個獎項。」

關於Power Integrations
    Power Integrations公司是用於電源轉換之高壓類比IC的領導供應商。由於Power Integrations在高壓類比IC方面的創新技術，讓小尺寸、高效能的電源得以廣泛使用在許多電子產品，包括AC轉DC及DC轉AC電源等應用。該公司的EcoSmartR節能技術大量減少了能源的浪費，自1998年推出這項技術以來，已為全球企業及消費大眾節省了十八億美元以上的電費支出。

    如需進一步資訊，請瀏覽Power Integrations公司的網站，網址： http://www.powerint.com。如需全球節能標準和EcoSmart解決方案，請直接至Power Integrations 公司http://www.powerint.com/greenroom查詢

Atmel's Product End-of-Life Notification

      September 4 , 2006  

    Product End-of-Life Notification EOL Number : CE063001

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