Atmel Launches Industry's First Family of Real-time, Flash-based ARM9 MCUs

Only ARM9-based MCUs to Support Direct Migration from ARM7s

San Jose, CA, June 6, 2006 . . . Atmel® Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML), announced today the industry's first family of ARM9-based Flash microcontrollers optimized for real-time embedded applications that have outgrown the ARM7™.

Atmel's SAM9 controllers are the world's only ARM9-based controllers that offer a direct upward migration path from ARM7 devices without giving up system integration. They have all the features required for real-time embedded control applications, including an on-chip RC-oscillator, watchdog timer, an 8-level 32-source priority interrupt controller, DMA, and single-cycle instruction fetch.

Based on the industry-standard ARM926EJ-S™ processor core, Atmel's SAM9 controllers share common integration levels, peripheral sets, and programming models with Atmel's SAM7 MCUs, radically simplifying migration between the two families. Tuned for real-time applications, SAM9 MCUs include a real-time clock, interrupt controller, watchdog timer, power-on-reset, brown-out-detection, RC-oscillator and single-cycle instruction fetch from on-chip memory. They are the only Flash-based ARM9 microcontrollers with small footprint RTOS support.

Evolving Applications Need More MIPS. As embedded systems evolve, new software-based features are added (such as encryption, file systems, GPS, audio, or wired and wireless networking), increasing the processing load on the MCU. In addition, the amount of data that must be processed also tends to increase as more communications links are integrated in a single chip. Finally, designers frequently migrate to more advanced algorithms that require more computation. The basic application doesn't change: it is just better, more accurate, more fully featured, and requires more bandwidth to execute. Getting the extra throughput has traditionally meant re-doing the design from scratch using a high-throughput ASSP, with no support for real-time execution and requiring the use of a complex operating system, such as Linux® or WindowsCE®. The lack of system integration in ASSPs forces significant hardware redesign including the addition of multiple external components with adverse effects on system cost and board level estate.

Integrated Flash Memory - Atmel's SAM9 microcontrollers are the first ARM9-based microcontrollers with Flash memory integrated on the same chip. A variety of family members will be announced in 2006 and 2007 with Flash memory densities ranging up to 1024 KBytes. Integrated Flash memory offers better performance and lower power consumption versus stacked die implementations.

About Atmel

Atmel is a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of microcontrollers, advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory and radio frequency (RF) components. Leveraging one of the industry's broadest intellectual property (IP) technology portfolios, Atmel is able to provide the electronics industry with complete system solutions. Focused on consumer, industrial, security, communications, computing and automotive markets, Atmel ICs can be found Everywhere You Are®.

Information

Information on the SAM9260 and the SAM9 family of deterministic ARM9-based MCUS may be found at: http://www.atmel.com/products/AT91/.