Atmel is a worldwide leader in the design, manufacturing, and marketing of advanced semiconductors and system-level integration solutions.

Atmel Corporation, founded in 1984, is a worldwide leader in the design, manufacturing and marketing of advanced semiconductors, including logic, nonvolatile memory, mixed signal and RF (radio frequency) integrated circuits. Atmel is also a pre-eminent provider of system-level integrated solutions, enabling its customers to lead the markets they serve with electronic products that are smaller, smarter, less expensive and more versatile than ever before.

Atmel is a multi-national company with worldwide revenues balanced between North America, Europe and Asia, and significant development and manufacturing operations in each region (see Figure 1). Headquartered in San Jose, California, Atmel operates fabrication facilities in the United States and Europe, including 8-inch, class one, 0.18-micron wafer fabrication plants in Texas and Rousset, France.

Atmel products are manufactured using the most advanced wafer processes, including BiCMOS, CMOS and Silicon Germanium (SiGe) technologies. In fact, Atmel is one of the first manufacturers to offer SiGe, a new technology that cost-effectively addresses the manufacturing requirements of the RF and high-frequency wireless communications markets.

From the start, Atmel has been committed to the development of leading

edge semiconductor technology and the Company¡¯s rapid growth has

come from its ability to take this technology and turn it into products

that meet the real needs of its customers¡¯ designs.

GATE ARRAY AND CELL-BASED ARRAYS

Atmel¡¯s Gate and Cell-based Arrays provide integrated solutions for electronic systems with fixed logic and memory schemes and high-volume production requirements. They¡¯re used in a wide range of networking, telecommunications, and computer systems.

They give customers the ability to combine a variety of digital functions on a single, highly integrated ¡°system-on-a chip¡± (SOC). To support this level of integration, a rich library of logic blocks, memory and macro cores are available. These include the ARM® 16/32-bit Flash RISC microprocessor, the company¡¯s own AVR® 8-bit RISC microcontroller, and digital signal processing (DSP) cores, all of which can be embedded in Atmel¡¯s 0.6µ, 0.35µ, and 0.25µ arrays.

NONVOLATILE MEMORIES

Every electronic appliance, communications and computing device requires the ability to store information as a set of operating instructions (program storage) and reference data (data storage). Nonvolatile memory devices fulfill both of these information storage requirements.

As such, they are the most critical component in any electronic equipment with the exception of the controller or processor.

Atmel is one of the largest nonvolatile memory manufacturers in the world and the only company to offer products covering EPROM, Serial EEPROM, Parallel EEPROM, DataFlash®, and Flash technologies.

Each product family has been designed and optimized to address the unique storage requirements and internal operating interfaces found in all electronic systems.

The total demand for all categories of nonvolatile memory is over 4 billion units per annum.

Atmel, with its wide range of products, operating voltages, and innovative packaging options, is uniquely positioned to serve many markets including portable applications, audio, video, internet, camera, communications, plus military, automotive and industrial controls.

PROGRAMMABLE LOGIC DEVICES (PLDs)

Simple PLDs are the most basic user-programmable logic form. They contain up to 500 logic gates and are found in virtually every type of electronic system. PLDs allow the designer to add more features in the same board space, while maintaining or decreasing overall power consumption. Complex PLDs offer densities to thousands of gates and beyond and are found in the control systems of industrial equipment, instrumentation, and computer-interface datacom boards. The ATF1500AS/ASV family is a compatible superset of the industry¡¯s most popular architecture.

MICROCONTROLLERS

Microcontrollers (MCUs) are the brains behind the control functions in virtually every electronic or electrically-powered system. Atmel manufactures in-system programmable Flash-based microcontrollers and offers the industry¡¯s widest selection of this type of device. They¡¯re found in consumer products, computers, communications applications, industrial equipment, and automotive subsystems.

Atmel introduced the world¡¯s first Flash MCU, based on industry-standard 80C51 architecture in 1993. More recently, the Company introduced its AVR line of 8-bit Flash RISC microcontrollers.

Based on a new proprietary architecture, these devices provide as much as ten times the performance or require one tenth the power of traditional 8-bit MCUs.

Atmel¡¯s latest ARM 16/32-bit RISC core technology is aimed at the rapidly growing high-end microcontroller market. This memory-efficient architecture is rapidly establishing itself as an industry standard.

BLUETOOTH¢â

Atmel, a member of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), is the only company that offers system designers a complete, single-vendor Bluetooth solution with RF, baseband controller, flash, software and firmware. This product, designed for either 10m or 100m voice or data wireless transfer, will target OEM manufacturers of mobile phones, laptop computers, pagers, PDAs, digital cameras and more, as a means of cable replacement.