SAN JOSE, California, September 2 /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