Atmel Launches US$399 Starter Kit for ARM7-Based Customizable Microcontrollers

San Jose, California (ots/PRNewswire) -

- Facilitates Low-cost, Easy Evaluation of CAP Capabilities

Atmel(R) Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML) today announced its
AT91CAP7A-STK Starter Kit for the evaluation of its ARM7(TM)-based
CAP(TM) family of customizable microcontrollers. CAP7 customizable
MCUs allow designers to migrate ARM7-plus-FPGA designs to a low-NRE,
single-chip solution with approximately 30% lower unit costs, with
eight times better performance, 98% less static power consumption,
and 70% less active power consumption.

The US$399 CAP7 Starter Kit includes a printed circuit board with
Atmel's ARM7-based AT91CAP7E microcontroller, Altera(R) Cyclone(R)II
EP2C8F256C7N FPGA with EPCS4SI8N serial configuration memory, 2.8"
TFT LCD panel, joystick, 64M Bytes of SDRAM application memory,
10-bit analog to digital converter (ADC), 256M Bytes of NAND flash
and a 4MB DataFlash(R). External interfaces include USB full-speed
device, four analog inputs, external bus interface (EBI), USART, SPI,
and Debug UART. The board also supports sensing applications with
light and temperature sensors and potentiometers.

The on-board Cyclone II FPGA contains 8,256 four-input Lookup
Table (LUTs) logic elements equivalent to 66,048 CAP7 MP block gates
-- about one seventh the total available logic on a CAP7 device. It
can be used to map and emulate application-specific IP blocks, in the
CAP7's embedded Metal Programmable (MP) block, along with the system
software. The AT91CAP7E executes at clock speeds up to 80 MHz and can
send to or receive data from the FPGA at this speed over the EBI. The
AT91CAP7E can also interface the FPGA via peripheral IO (PIO).

The CAP7 starter kit allows designers to determine how the
software, MCU and new IP will play together in a customizable MCU,
without incurring any NRE charges or spending thousands of dollars
for a full development board. Designers can accurately gauge the
superior power consumption and performance characteristics of the
CAP7 device, evaluate the ADC resolution, and experiment with the
peripherals on the device. Smaller designs can be emulated and
evaluated on the AT91CAP7A-STK. However for development of a
customized CAP7 device, the fully featured AT91CAP7-DK is recommended
to allow customers to take full advantage of the CAP7's multi-layer
high-speed bus (AHB) and peripheral DMA.

There are 32 general-purpose I/O connections on the AT91CAP7E,
and 75 I/Os on the FPGA to support application-specific external
interfaces. Debug is facilitated by the provision of an ICE-JTAG
interface for CAP7 JTAG programming, and a USB-Blaster-JTAG interface
for Cyclone II JTAG programming.

Jay Johnson, Atmel's Marketing Director for ASIC Products,
commented, "Development boards with an ARM7 and FPGA usually cost
thousands of dollars. The US$399 CAP7 starter kit is the first
ARM7-plus FPGA kit to provide a low cost alternative for evaluating
these designs and for validating the CAP7 concept, without any NRE
charges or risk. This kit can be used by anyone from a developer in a
tier-one electronics company to the smallest startup to find out how
easy it is to customize an ARM-based MCU for a specific application.
It is also the ideal vehicle for students of electronics engineering
to consolidate their knowledge of system-on-chip hardware and
software design."

Availability and Pricing
The AT91CAP7A-STK Starter Kit is now available and is priced at US$399.

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.

(C) 2008 Atmel Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Atmel(R), logo
and combinations thereof, DataFlash(R) and others, are registered
trademarks, CAP(TM) and others are trademarks of Atmel Corporation or
its subsidiaries. ARM(R) and others are a registered trademark or
trademark of ARM Ltd. Other terms and product names may be trademarks
of others.

Information:

Atmel's AT91CAP product information may be found at
http://www.atmel.com/products/AT91CAP/.

Press Contacts:
Barbara Bailey, Marketing Communications Manager
Tel: +1-719-540-1895, Email: barbara.bailey@atmel.com
Helen Perlegos, Public Relations, US and Asia
Tel: +1-408-487-2963, Email: hperlegos@atmel.com

Web site: http://www.atmel.com

ots Originaltext: Atmel Corporation
Im Internet recherchierbar: http://www.presseportal.de

Contact:
Barbara Bailey, Marketing Communications Manager, +1-719-540-1895,
barbara.bailey@atmel.com, or Helen Perlegos, Public Relations, US and
Asia, +1-408-487-2963, hperlegos@atmel.com, both of Atmel Corporation