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Development Kit for Customizable ARM7-based MCUs

   San Jose, CA, April 15, 2008  

AT91CAP7X-DK Includes ARM7-based Microcontroller with 80K LC FPGA

    Atmel® Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML) today announced its AT91CAP7X-DK development kit for designers to develop, emulate, and ultimately migrate ARM7™-plus-FPGA designs to Atmel¡¦s CAP7 customizable microcontrollers.

     Atmel¡¦s CAP7 customizable MCU is an ARM7-based microcontroller with a metal-programmable (MP) block with 450K gates or the equivalent of 56K FPGA logic cells (LC), as well as a USB 2.0 full speed device, SPI master and slave, two USARTs, three 16-bit timer counters, an 8-channel/ 10-bit analog to digital converter, plus interrupt control and supervisory functions noted above. Any functionality that has been implemented in an FPGA may be migrated directly to a CAP7 device with no special EDA tools or customer-side engineering.

    Atmel¡¦s AT91CAP7X-DK development kit may be used to develop ARM7-based MCUs with custom peripheral sets not available on standard MCUs (e.g. 10 USARTs or 20 PWMs). Atmel owns or has access to extensive libraries of well-documented peripherals that include TWI, SPI master and slave, SSC, MCI, USARTS, Ethernet MAC, CAN, EBI, full-speed USB host and device, image sensor interface, LCD and AC97 controllers, timer counters, analog to digital converters and AES/TDES encryption/decryption engines. There is no extra charge for including Atmel-owned peripherals on CAP™ devices. Customers may also implement their own or 3rd party peripherals in the MP block.

    The AT91CAP-DK motherboard has an extensive set of interface devices, which are controlled by the device controllers embedded in the AT91CAP7 customizable MCU.
The motherboard includes a 3.5¡¨ ? VGA TFT Color LCD display , a 10/100 Ethernet PHY, USB 2.0 High-Speed Host and High-Speed Device Ports, USB 2.0 Full-Speed Device ports (x3), an I2S Audio Device, ADC inputs (x4), an AC97 Audio CODEC, SD / MMC Card Slots (x2), a USART Serial Communication Device, a CAN Interface Device, a TWI Serial EEPROM Device, an image sensor device connector, a 16 Button Keypad, a PCI64 Slot, GPIO expansion slots (x4), software controlled power indication and general¡Vpurpose LED¡¦s.

    The CAP7 specific daughter board includes the AT91CAP7S MCU and a high density FPGA with 80K logic cells, capable of interfacing custom logic directly to the AT91CAP7S AMBA architecture. The daughter card plugs directly onto the motherboard for not only software and hardware development, but also connection to real world applications for prototyping and end product evaluation. A memory expansion board includes 64Mbytes of SDRAM, 8Mbytes of NOR Flash and 256Mbytes of NAND Flash.

    Uses Existing Third-party Tools. The same C-compilers, RTOS, OSs, ICEs and IDEs used with Atmel¡¦s AT91SAM ARM-based MCUs can be used with the CAP. FPGA design may be done using any FPGA design software, including third party tools.

    Availability and Pricing. Atmel¡¦s AT91CAP7X-DK development kit is available now and priced at $3,500. Atmel charges a one-time fee of $150,000 for design, mask fees, and prototypes of the customized ARM7-based MCUs. Production unit prices are $5.44 in quantities of 50,000 for the AT91CAP7S250 device.

Atmel and TimeSys Announce Embedded Linux Support for AT91CAP Customizable Microcontrollers

   Rousset, France and Pittsburgh, PA, USA, April 14, 2008  

LinuxLink Subscription Accelerates Embedded Development

    Atmel® Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML) and TimeSys® announced today embedded Linux® support for Atmel¡¦s ARM9®-based AT91CAP9 customizable microcontroller. Ideal for rapid design validation, TimeSys is offering a free Board Support Package (BSP) for the CAP9 based on the 2.6.23 kernel. Additionally, the free BSP can be upgraded to a full LinuxLink subscription, providing a powerful suite of software, tools and support to accelerate the development of a custom Linux platform.

    The free BSP enables application developers to rapidly validate Linux on the AT91CAP9A Development Board that includes an FPGA for emulation of the CAP™ Metal Programmable Block for custom logic. This BSP includes Atmel¡¦s Linux kernel and drivers, BusyBox utilities for basic commands and features, and a Linux host/cross toolchain capable of re-building the Linux kernel and the basic packages included in the BSP. Together with a full documentation set and basic support, this offering provides a ready-to-use package to validate Linux with Atmel¡¦s CAP customizable microcontroller.

    By upgrading to a full LinuxLink subscription, application developers can rapidly create their own customized Linux software platform, with access to an expanded, regularly updated list of Linux components optimized for CAP9, including the 2.6.23 Linux kernel, hundreds of packages pre-compiled for use with CAP9, and a reference distribution that provides an integrated and tested starting point for platform customization. The LinuxLink subscription also includes a robust collection of open source and TimeSys-developed tools, including the TimeStorm Eclipse-based IDE, as well as extensive documentation and support.

    Michel Le Lan, Atmel¡¦s Marketing Director for ASIC products, commented, ¡§We welcome TimeSys to the growing community of value-added service providers that we are building around our CAP™ customizable microcontroller. TimeSys contributes years of experience in embedded Linux, enabling our mutual customers to rapidly develop a solid Linux platform to support their CAP applications.¡¨

    Greg Quiggle, Vice President of Sales and Marketing from TimeSys, added, ¡§TimeSys is pleased to build on the success of its LinuxLink subscriptions and BSPs that have been developed for Atmel¡¦s AT91SAM ARM9 based microcontrollers. Extending our product portfolio to the CAP9 opens up new horizons in the field of customizable microcontrollers.¡¨

    The TimeSys CAP9 LinuxLink and BSP will be demonstrated both at the Atmel stand (Booth # 928), and the TimeSys stand (Booth #946), during the Embedded Systems Conference, San Jose, CA, USA, from April 14-18, 2008.

    Atmel¡¦s CAP Customizable Microcontroller

Atmel's CAP™ is an ARM®„¥ microcontroller-based system-on-chip with fast local memory, a wide range of industry-standard peripherals and interfaces, and a Metal Programmable (MP) Block that allows the designer to add custom logic. By combining the performance, density and low power consumption of the fixed portion of the device with the flexibility of the MP Block, CAP enables application-specific products to be developed in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of standard-cell ASICs, but at a unit price close to that of standard cell devices. CAP¡¦s Metal Programmable Block can be personalized with IP cores from Atmel¡¦s extensive library of product-tested functions, or from accredited third parties, or with cores developed by the CAP customer to give the application-specific product its competitive edge. CAP also offers superior performance, smaller form factor and lower power consumption at a unit price significantly lower than an MCU-plus-FPGA combination for the same functionality. CAP is fully supported with an emulation board, software development tools, operating systems and code modules to facilitate application software development.

    Availability and Pricing

The TimeSys LinuxLink and BSP for CAP9 are available now from TimeSys. The CAP9 BSP is free of charge; contact TimeSys for information regarding LinuxLink subscription pricing.

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