Atmel Expands Its Ultra-Low Power Microcontroller Offering With Three New picoPower AVR MCU's

San Jose, California (ots/PRNewswire) -

- 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(R) Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML), announced today three new
AVR(R) microcontrollers with incorporated power-saving technology
that provides multi-year battery life in lighting control, security,
keyless entry, ZigBee(TM) and other applications that spend a
significant amount of their time in sleep mode. The picoPower(TM)
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
US$2.23 for ATmega164P and US$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
US$3.72.

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(R).

NOTE: Atmel(R), logo and combinations thereof, Everywhere You
Are(R), AVR(R) and others, are registered trademarks, picoPower(TM)
and others are trademarks of Atmel Corporation or its subsidiaries.
Other terms and product names may be trademarks of others.

Information:

Atmel's picoPower AVR information may be retrieved at:
www.atmel.com/products/avr/picopower .

Press Contacts:
Philippe Faure, Marketing Communications Manager - Microcontrollers
Phone: +33-2-40-18-18-87, Email: philippe.faure@nto.atmel.com
Helen Perlegos, Public Relations - USA and Asia Pacific Rim
Phone: +1-408-487-2963, Email: hperlegos@atmel.com
Veronique Sablereau, Corporate Communications Manager - Europe
Phone: +33-1-30-60-70-68, Fax: +49-71-31-67-24-23 Email:
veronique.sablereau@atmel.com

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

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

Contact:
Philippe Faure, Marketing Communications Manager - Microcontrollers,
+33-2-40-18-18-87, or philippe.faure@nto.atmel.com, or Helen
Perlegos, Public Relations - USA and Asia Pacific Rim,
+1-408-487-2963, or hperlegos@atmel.com, or Veronique Sablereau,
Corporate Communications Manager - Europe, +33-1-30-60-70-68, or fax,
+49-71-31-67-24-23, or veronique.sablereau@atmel.com, all of Atmel