Are Microcontrollers Powering What’s On Your Black Friday Wish List?

Do you plan to brave the crowds and shop for deals on Black Friday (or online, on Cyber Monday?). If electronics are on your shopping list, there’s a good chance that microcontrollers or touchscreen controllers are inside. These versatile, high-performance, low-power devices are workhorses that handle a variety of functions in a variety of products.

The folks at iFixit have taken a close look at a couple of new products featuring Atmel touchscreen controllers. Microsoft’s new Surface tablet contains three mXT154E devices and a mXT1386 device. And Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD has an Atmel maXTouch mXT768E inside.

What kinds of microcontroller-powered electronic products are you eyeing this holiday season?

Inside Microsoft Surface Tablet

The folks at iFixit have taken a good look inside Microsoft’s new Windows RT-based Surface tablet. Of course, we’re happy that the tablet contains four of our maXTouch touchscreen controllers inside, three mXT154E devices and a mXT1386 device. It’ll be interesting to see how widely adopted the Surface might be in the workplace. We played with one recently, and found it very easy to type on the keyboard that’s integrated into the tablet cover. And, of course, there’s access to a version of Microsoft Office and other productivity apps.

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Teardown/11275/1