Atmel Introduces Programmable SOC for Portable Applications; AT94K10 Programmable SoC Consumes Less than 50uA in Standby and 2-3 mA/MHz Active.

Business Editors/High Tech Writers

SAN JOSE Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 7, 2001

Atmel(R) Corporation (NASDAQ: ATML) announced today a new programmable system-on-a-chip (SoC) designed specifically for low-power, high performance portable applications. The company's AT94K10 Field Programmable System Level IC (FPSLIC) provides system-level integration of Microcontroller, programmable logic, control, memory and I/O functions, while consuming less than 50uA in standby and only 2-3 mA/MHz during operation. The AT94K's high level of integration and low power drain make it ideal for such low power applications as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and their peripherals, cell phone add-on equipment, global positioning systems (GPS), portable test equipment, point-of-sale equipment, security systems or wireless Internet appliances.

Atmel began shipping the world's first RISC-based programmable SoC, the AT94K40 and associated EDA tools in October of 2000.

The newest FPSLIC device integrates a 20+ MIPS AVR RISC microcontroller with hardware multiplier, 10,000 gates of SRAM-based programmable logic, 36 KBytes of SRAM, an industry standard two-wire serial interface, two UARTs, three timer/counters, and a watchdog timer. The on-chip MCU has 127 16-bit, fixed-length instructions that have been optimized so that 90% of all MCU operations can be handled by a single instruction. A two-stage pipeline and separate addresses for load and store operations enable single-cycle instruction execution. Thirty-two 8-bit registers allow the CPU to access multiple data simultaneously, eliminating the need for most data transfer operations and enabling higher code density. The AVR's higher code density results in code size that is as much as 50% smaller than it would be with other 8-bit MCUs for the same functionality.

Atmel provides extensive EDA support for FPSLIC with a co-verification framework that allows the MCU code to be debugged simultaneously with the HDL simulation of the FPGA logic. Atmel is the only vendor to offer this level of EDA support for its programmable SoCs.

According to Martin Mason, Atmel's Programmable SLi Product Marketing Manager, "The AT94K10 is an entirely new breed of programmable SoC because it is designed specifically to meet the needs of power and space-constrained portable and wireless applications. In over a year of working with FPSLIC customers, we have found that very few designers of handheld devices are interested in huge programmable logic arrays. They want sufficient throughput from their microcontroller to get the job done, with enough logic to customize their applications.

"What they also want," Mason continued, "is a combination of a price point that supports their high volume markets and the lowest possible power consumption they can get. Battery life is a key differentiator for their portable end-products. In short, they want the performance and pricing of an ASIC without their huge NREs and time to market limitations."

"That's exactly what the AT94K10 provides. It offers 20+ MIPS throughput, very dense code, sufficient programmable logic to implement their designs and power consumption of just 150 microwatts in standby and no more than 2-3 mA/MHz during operation. On top of this, FPSLIC devices are in-system dynamically reconfigurable at the cell level. This feature allows them to implement multiple different system functions in a single piece of silicon. No other programmable SoC can make this claim. In short, the AT94K10 FPSLIC is the best programmable SoC on the market for small footprint, portable designs," Mason concluded.

The AT94K10 FPSLIC is available now in production quantities, in 84-pin PLCC, 100-pin TQFP , 144-pin TQFP, and 208-PQFP packages. Prices start at $9.95 in quantities of 250,000.

About Atmel

Founded in 1984, Atmel Corporation is headquartered in San Jose, California with manufacturing facilities in North America and Europe. Atmel designs, manufactures and markets worldwide, advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory and RF semiconductors. Atmel is also a leading provider of system-level integration semiconductor solutions using CMOS, BiCMOS, bipolar SiGe, and high-voltage BCDMOS process technologies.

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