Atmel^® Corporation announced three new 6-pin picoPower^® AVR^® microcontrollers. The ATtiny4, ATtiny5, and ATtiny9 are pin- and code- compatible, include a rich feature set, and execute code 6-times faster than the closest competitor.

The AT90SCR050 is a new Atmel AVR® microcontroller designed for the smart card reader market. Targeting the low-cost, high volume market, Atmel’s new AT90SCR050 is a complete system solution that enables designers to bring their products faster-to-market. The AT90SCR050 is AVR microcontroller with 16 Kbytes of ROM, 768 bytes of SRAM. It features USB controller device (8 end points), USART Serial Interface , Smart Card Interface ISO 7816 compliant, DC/DC converter (Class A,B,C supported), 2 timers and 1 GPIO. The AT90SCR050 is a member of the AT90SCR family. With an Atmel AVR secure microcontroller embedded in these devices, customers can take advantage of the free AVR Studio® and AVR JTAGICE mkII that support all AVR-based microcontrollers. An evaluation kit AT90SCR100MEB-01 is available for this device.

Includes new QT600 development kit, and QTouch(R) Studio for developing and embedding touch solutions as buttons, sliders and wheels to any AVR MCU design

Atmel Corporation, a leader in touch and microcontroller-based solutions, today announced the release of the Atmel QTouch Suite, a complete development suite for capacitive touch buttons, sliders and wheels using AVR^® microcontrollers. The Atmel QTouch Suite is a bundle that includes the new QT600 development kit and QTouch Studio, AVR Studio® and QTouch Library SW package for AVR microcontrollers.

Partners combine expertise to provide ultra-small, turn-key, IO-Link solution based on Atmel AVR microcontroller family, HMT PHY IC, and MESCO IO-Link software stack

Atmel^® Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML), HMT Microelectronic, and MESCO Engineering today announced a cooperation to provide turn-key solutions for integrated IO-Link devices. This new solution provides designers overall savings in bill-of-material and board space. The IO-Link reference design combines each company’s proven components including Atmel’s AVR(TM) microcontrollers, HMT’s PHY IC and MESCO’s IO-Link stack to create the industry’s smallest IO-Link reference design. IO-Link is the upcoming industrial control communication standard that will introduce several benefits for the end user, including easier cabling, remote diagnostics and configuration.

Atmel Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML) today announced its CryptoAuthentication(TM) Starter Kit. The AT88CK109STK3 is a modular and versatile development kit for Atmel's CryptoAuthentication(TM) AT88SA102S and AT88SA100S client security devices and AT88SA10HS host security companion IC. Atmel's CryptoAuthentication devices are the industry's most secure authentication ICs that include an embedded SHA-256 engine and 256-bit cryptographic key to make them virtually impossible to crack using brute force methods. The nearest competing authentication IC has a key size of only 128 bits.

Atmel launched the Xplain evaluation kit for their AVR XMEGA microcontroller family. The kit helps engineers evaluate features and system performance of Atmel’s XMEGA at a minimum hardware cost. The kit is powered through a mini USB connector where end-users can develop their own applications on XMEGA using Xplain. The Xplain evaluation kit for the AVR XMEGA microcontroller family has a suggested resale price of $29 (USD).