Video Diary: A look back at Electronica 2014

Electronica 2014 is officially in the books! Atmel was front and center in this year’s activities, as the week of November 11-14 was filled with numerous product releases, countless visitors, endless giveaways, and of course, more than 40 jam-packed application demos for the ever-growing Internet of Things. Weren’t able to join us in Munich? Here’s a look back at […]

Atmel and SIGFOX team up on long-range IoT

French startup SIGFOX has announced that the Atmel ATA8520 device has become first SIGFOX Ready-certified system-on-chip (SoC) solution. The combination of Atmel’s dedicated SIGFOX-certified IC with SIGFOX’s proprietary network enables low cost, long-range, low-power wireless connectivity for a wide array of IoT applications including environmental sensors, smart meters, patient monitors, security devices and street lights. Atmel’s new ATA8520 […]

Report: 4.9 billion connected “things” will be in use next year

According to the latest report from Gartner, the Internet of Things (IoT) is forecasted to reach 25 billion connected things by 2020, with just shy of 5 billion installed objects to be in use next year — up from 0.9 billion just five years ago. That’s nearly three Internet-enabled devices for every person on the planet over the next six years! The analysts recently […]

Introducing the next-generation of 8-bit megaAVR MCUs

Since its initial launch in 2002, megaAVR microcontrollers (MCUs) have become the go-to choice of Makers everywhere. Ranging from the uber-popular ATmega328 to ATmega32U4, the chips can be found at the heart of millions of gadgets and gizmos, including an entire lineup of Arduino boards, 3D printers like RepRap and MakerBot, and innovative DIY platforms such as littleBits, Bare Conductive and MaKey MaKey. […]

Video: Vegard Wollan reflects on life and innovation

In the final segment of my interview with AVR microcontroller creator Vegard Wollan, I asked about his background and innovation at Atmel. In response to my question of how he views his expertise, Vegard noted that he started out as a computer architect and digital designer. It’s simple to see the ease-of-use DNA in the AVR product line […]

Print my ride! Your next car will be 3D-printed in less than two days

History was made when the world’s first 3D-printed car drove out of Chicago’s McCormick Place during the 2014 International Manufacturing Technology Show back in September. The vehicle components took 44 hours to print, and after a swift assembly, the vehicle named “Strati” headed off the showroom floor. The brainchild of Local Motors, Stratri was produced in one piece using direct digital manufacturing (DDM), […]

Introducing Atmel’s new LIN family for in-vehicle networking

LIN (Local Interconnect Network) is a serial network protocol used for communication between various automobile components to enable comfort, power-train, infotainment sensor, and actuator applications. The LIN Consortium was founded by five automakers (BMW, Volkswagen Audi Group, Volvo Cars, DaimlerChrysler) in the late 1990s, with the first fully-implemented version of the new LIN specification (1.3) published in November 2002. Version […]

Atmel launches new CAN transceiver family

We are excited to announce the launch of a new family of control area network (CAN) transceivers to meet the growing demands of the automotive and industrial markets. Supporting the new CAN FD (flexible data rate) standard with data rates up to 5Mbits/s, our new ATA6560 and ATA6561 provide an interface between a CAN protocol controller and […]

Report: Internet of Things semiconductor market set for rapid growth

The Internet of Things (IoT) processor, sensor and communications markets are set to grow by 36.2% next year, according to a new Gartner report. The study reveals that processors will be the largest revenue contributor to the connected “things” semiconductor device forecast ($7.58 billion in 2015), while sensors will experience the greatest increase with 47.5 percent growth in 2015. “The […]

Electronica 2014 may be the ‘smartest’ show yet!

As we prepare to head off to Munich, Germany for perhaps one of the ’smartest’ shows of the year, Electronica 2014 attendees are in for a treat! Over the next couple of days, we will be unveiling a number of new solutions to further enable smart, connected and secure devices for the ever-growing Internet of Things (IoT) — […]