Billions of chips, unlimited possibilities

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Vegard Wollan reveals that there are now more AVR chips in the wild as there are people in the world. (Note: A loose translation from Adressa’s recent article.)

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Though the slogan “Enabling Unlimited Possibilities” may not be the most modest as they come, why should it have to be? Especially when your company, whose heritage has ties to Trondheim, is at the forefront of the incredibly popular and ever-evolving IoT innovation battle.

Vegard Wollan, AVR co-founder and VP of Atmel’s Touch Business Unit, had the chance to catch up with local Trondheim newspaper Adressa to discuss some of his team’s latest developments. One in particular, the maXTouch family of touchscreen controllers provides unprecedented hover and proximity capabilities, where a user no longer is required to touch the display, but instead triggers different functions by simply holding their finger right above it.

Just the other night, several Atmel employees in Trondheim came together to celebrate not only their commitment to the local community but an impressive milestone, namely 7,338,088,583 AVR chips. To put that figure into perspective, that is at least one MCU for each person on Earth.

“It’s insane! We have the increasing ability to top what we’ve done previously,” Wollan says. “We have been doing this for 20 years and have never had such high production as we do now. In 1999, we thought it was giant milestone to pass 10 million. Now, we have produced 7.3 billion and create about one billion units a year.”

The figure is almost as impressive as the customer list of “little” Atmel Norway, and its tight-knit team of just under 200 employees. Wollan highlights a few of the top tier brands powered by the stalwart microcontrollers, which include some of the largest and most recognizable names out there today. Among those are Google, Microsoft, Bosch, Sony, Samsung, LG, General Motors, Ford, Jaguar and Tesla.

“And this is just an excerpt. When we started the company in 1995, we dreamed about getting some big customers such as LG or Sony or Mercedes or what not. And now we have this list! So it’s really what we are celebrating and we are madly proud of,” Wollan adds.

Another focus as of late has been on China, and the next generation of gizmos and gadgets coming out the country where Atmel has played an integral role in their development, most notably ZTE and Xiaomi. While both of these manufacturers may not be the most globally known brands (yet), they have contributed millions of smartphones to the consumer market — many of which based on Atmel solutions.

“Our customers in China have now launching new phones with new technology from us. We have developed a whole new edge-free design for smartphones, so you get the larger screen without the phone being bigger. The screen goes absolutely to the edge with virtual edge buttons without the buttons here. You hold such phone as a camera and phone camera turns on. And pressing your index finger on the top right hand side on, and you take a picture,” Wollan explains.

One of the coolest projects worth mentioning is a recent collaboration with global music sensation, Coldplay, who commissioned the help of the Trondheim team. Wollan goes on to laughingly reveal, “It’s a little funny that one of our engineers have been in the practice room with Coldplay to test our technology.”

Through wireless connectivity, Coldplay has been able to transform its sold-out crowds into brilliant canvas of colorful LEDs, all while providing greater engagement amongst its fans. As concertgoers enter the arena, they are given a flashing bracelet that can be remotely controlled from any PC and pulse to the rhythm of the band’s music.

“You had to see the whole place light up in flashing, multi-colored bracelets. When we saw it from the stage, we could not believe we had managed to achieve this. It is about everyone, not just about the band and the fanatical folks at the stage, but all of us become part of the show by having a small armband.”

Wollan shares that Atmel is continuing to develop its initiative with Coldplay, but cannot go into more detail at this time. During the celebration of the company’s achievement the other night, employees were even given a chance to experience the wireless wearable devices as they waved their arms to the beat of some tunes.

Intrigued? You can tune-in to the entire segment here!

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 when Vegard then noted that he soon saw himself as someone that could make life easy for embedded designers. I think this focus on the customer pervades all of Atmel to this day.

Vegard Wollan reflects on his history of innovation at Atmel.

I went on to ask Vegard what he does in his spare time. His response? Exercising and boating off the beautiful, dramatic Norwegian coastline. I think physical activity is a key thing. In fact, I wish someone had warned me as a young man that engineering has an occupational hazard. You can make a good living sitting at a desk. This was less true when I was an automotive engineer, as I had to go the experimental garage and walk around Ford’s giant complex in Dearborn, Michigan. Nowadays, we all seem chained to a computer, and stuck in a chair all daylong. So, exercise and boating sounds like a great way to stay active and balance our lives a little bit!

As I pictured Vegard sailing around Norway looking at beautiful sunsets, I wondered if that was inspired him to be so innovative. He responded that the primary source of innovation at Atmel is working with a team of creative innovative people. I think this is true in most human endeavors. When I asked my dad why some restaurants had really good service, he noted that good people like to work with other good people. That is why Vegard is spot-on, and quite humble in noting that innovation comes from a team, not any single person.

Want to learn more about the backstory of AVR? You can tune-in to the entire 14-part series here.

Video: Vegard Wollan addresses Internet of Things security

In this video segment from my interview with Vegard Wollan, the co-inventor of the AVR microcontroller, we explore in detail the security problems you need to address as an embedded designer.

Let’s face it, it is obvious that security is a way of thinking. You have to assume bad people are going to try and hack your products. With the oncoming revolution in the Internet of Things, it is important you design the security within, rather than try to tack something on after an exploit.

The co-inventor of the AVR architecture notes that security is essential in embedded systems.

The key thing you have to know is that nothing beats hardware security. This is where the security system is implemented in silicon, storing a secret key, hash algorithms and random-number generator (RNG). Atmel makes both standalone security chips and incorporates the security circuits into some of our microcontrollers including Atmel | SMART ARM-based chips used for smart energy meters. The chips are more sophisticated than a simple IP block. In fact, there are extra layers of metal in the die so that hackers cannot probe the chip without ruining it. Many of the chips also dither the supply current, so a hacker cannot infer the code it is running by observing the tiny variations in supply current as it runs.

Atmel makes symmetrical security chips, where both the chip and the microcontroller code know the secret key, and also asymmetrical security chips, which work like that public and private keys systems you might be familiar with such as PGP and RSA security. And, note that you can uses Atmel’s tiny inexpensive security chips with any microcontroller, 8-bit, 16-bit or 32-bit, including all the micros made by Atmel’s honored competitors.

Interested in more? You can watch the entire 1:1 interview with Vegard here.

Video: Vegard Wollan talks AVR and ARM low-power operation

In this segment of the series, the co-inventor of the AVR microcontroller chip talks about the famously low power that the chips consume.

I had heard that one of the clever things Atmel does to save memory power is that we turn on the memory, fetch four instruction op-codes then turn the memory off again. Now, if there is a branch in these four op-codes that change the program flow, well, we have to turn on the memory and grab another four instructions. But, you can imagine just how often that the chips are executing all for instructions, so that we get those four op codes for the power cost of one fetch.

Vegard Wollan jokes will fellow Norwegian Andreas Eieland [off camera] about divulging the secrets to Atmel’s ultra-low power.

Vegard confirmed that Atmel does this on both the latest AVR and on our Atmel | SMART ARM-based chips. I love this clip since this is where we break the 4th wall as Vegard jokes to the crew that I am giving away too many secrets. I also confirmed that some of our ARM chips have a switching regulator controller built in. For instance, the SAM4L has one switching and one linear regulator built in. Now we don’t put any giant inductors inside the chip, you supply the external inductor, but all the control circuitry is available so you can really minimize the BOM (bill-of-materials).

To allow single-supply operation the ARM-based SAM4L microcontroller has a switching regulator on board, you only need to supply an external inductor.

This is yet another thing that differentiates our ARM-core parts from the competition. Most engineers know how cool and revolutionary the AVR was, but we have applied all the “cool” and more to our ARM-based chips. As Vegard noted, we have many tricks and innovations to sip the lowest amount of power, and that includes having our own processes at our Colorado Springs fabrication facility.

Vegard Wollan on the AVR and ARM cores and peripherals

In the fifth video of the series, I asked the co-inventor of the AVR microcontroller about the progression of the peripherals in the various microcontrollers Atmel offers. Vegard shares that when they invented the first AVR products, the team was concerned with ease-of-use, a clean instruction set that would run C, instructions that ran in a single cycle, and good quality tools.

However, he was just as proud of the peripherals that they then developed for the XMEGA line of AVR 8-bit chips. There, he said the stress was still on low power, but also a set of peripherals that were high performance, robust, strong, effective, and that included analog and digital advanced peripherals. Additionally, Vegard stressed how the XMEGA event system would allow programmers to handle complex events and take action, all without waking up the CPU core in the part.

Vegard Wollan becomes animated when talking about the peripherals in AVR and ARM chips offered by Atmel.

I knew this was cool for the low-power aspect, yet Vegard reminded me that it also allows you to service an interrupt faster and more deterministically — always a good thing in embedded systems. The great news for engineers is that all the cool things Atmel figured out for the XMEGA AVR also went into to the UC3, the 32-bit AVR product lines. Then, we made sure to put these same powerful and flexible peripheral systems into our ARM core-based MCUs. In addition we would add dedicated touch I/O pins and more accurate clocks and references. You can still see the AVR DNA from back in 1990 at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology where the AVR came to life.

What I really loved about Vegard was his humility. Every time I tried to give him credit for the AVR he was sure to remind me that there was a whole team that developed it. And, when I tried to point that the AVR was RISC (reduced instruction set computer) before ARM came out, he told me that he was more proud of the peripherals in all of Atmel’s chips, rather than just the core he invented for the AVR. That’s a good thing to keep in mind.

While using any ARM core will get you the instruction set and header files and open-source tools, Atmel’s ARM chips will also get these great peripherals and the event system to tie them all together, while the CPU sleeps peacefully. A recent article helped me understand Vegard’s Norwegian modesty, but I am sure glad he and his team worked on the AVR and ARM chips.

Vegard Wollan talks AVR chips and tools

While some of my earlier segments with Vegard explored the history of AVR, this video with its co-inventor addresses its product line and the tools one would use to write the firmware for the 8-bit chips.

Vegard touches on the availability of AVR chips in DIP (dual in-line) packages. These larger packages are loved by Makers and hobbyists since they are easy to prototype with. You can solder to the pins without a microscope and it is easy to make changes. They are also well-suited to installing in sockets, so you can replace them, or yank them out and program them in a separate programmer board.

Atmel still makes parts in the older DIP package, loved by hobbyists and Makers alike.

In the interview, Vegard refers to the ball grid array, commonly referred to as BGA by us acronym-loving tech people. BGAs are extremely small, just a little bigger than the silicon die itself. They also tend to transfer heat out of the die effectively, but that is rarely a factor in AVR chips since they are so low power. The headache with BGA chips is that you need an IR reflow oven to solder them on a board. Now, my buddy Wayne Yamaguchi has figured out a toaster oven will get the job done, just don’t toast any bread in it after you put a lead-soldered board into it.

Atmel parts in BGA packages are very small, but take special inspection and rework equipment.

The real headaches with BGA packages are rework and inspection. To replace the chip, you would need a camera mounted hot-air rework station from Metal/OKI; in order to make sure it is soldered correctly would require an X-ray machine (no, I am not kidding) to see that all the balls have sweated onto the pads under the chip. It helps to use gold-immersion finished circuit boards since they tend to be flatter than HASL (hot air solder-leveled) boards. However, if you are making some leading-edge tiny consumer product, all these prototyping and QC hassles are well worth it to get the smallest size possible.

To remove and resolder a BGA on your circuit board, you need to use a high-dollar camera equipped hot-air station like the Metcal Scorpion from Oki.

Vegard confirmed that Atmel uses the AVR 32-bit UC3 core in our touch controllers and mouse controller products. As you will see in the video above, we then went on to discuss Atmel’s legacy of providing really inexpensive demo boards and development tools.

Vegard Wollan smiles with pride as I show him an old demo board I used in 1999.

I also dragged out the actual AVR ICE 200 in-circuit emulator (ICE) I used in 1998, to design a point-of-sale terminal (note I misspeak in the video, calling it an STK200). The remarkable thing was this system would emulate an AVR chip in-circuit, and it only cost 200 dollars, back in an era when Intel Blue-Box 8051 systems were 50 grand.

Vegard Wollan really beams as I describe the 200-dollar Atmel AVR ICE 200, that got my startup off to a fast start in 2001.

To conclude the segment, Vegard Wollan shares how the Atmel Studio 6 integrated development environment is a high-quality software tool to develop your application, and works with AVR 8- and 32-bit parts as well as Atmel ARM-core microcontroller chips. When you add Atmel Gallery, Atmel Spaces, and the Atmel Software Framework (ASF), Atmel Studio becomes an integrated development platform (IDP). And, don’t forget you can get Atmel demo hardware through our distributors or the Atmel Store.

 

Vegard Wollan on AVR Freaks and early data books

In the fourth episode of my interview with Vegard Wollan, the co-inventor of the AVR MCU alluded to the passionate following that Atmel and its 8-bit chip have developed.

I can personally attest to this. When one of my pals said he was “going off the reservation” to solve an AVR problem, I thought he meant he was going to use a certain competitor’s microcontroller. Turns out, he was simply referring that he was headed to Atmel’s AVR Freaks forum to get an answer, rather than put in a support ticket or use our knowledge base. What delighted me was when he said, “I would rather jump off a bridge than use a [competitor] part.” Simple as that.

Atmel recently rolled out a redesigned site for the die-hard community, which incorporates both feedback and testing provided by the users themselves. Aside from the new look, the site will utilize a much more robust infrastructure and web technologies to provide users with an enhanced experience. (For those seeking an avid community built around the Atmel | SMART ARM-based products, you can check out AT91.com.)

What I loved about the interview is how Vegard explained it was his college experience that convinced him of the value of a strong user community. We all remember those 3:00am dorm sessions where we would discuss the meaning of life. Vegard noted that Atmel would provide servers and gifts and anything else we could do to support the user community.

The co-inventor also brought along a few copies of the first AVR data book. I was amused to see this post on the AVR Freaks forum, by a user that did not know what a “data book” was. Boy, that makes me feel old! See sonny, back when the Earth was still cooling and dinosaurs roamed the fields, engineers didn’t do everything at their fingertip on the intertube. Companies, much like Atmel, would take all their datasheets and bind them up in this thing called a printed book. I have to admit, it was a great day when I tossed my 500 pounds of databooks in the dumpster. Bless the Internet, it made life so much better.

Vegard Wollan holds up the draft version of the May 1995 AVR databook.

Of course, that draft was only a checkplot for the real book. The video also shows Vegard holding up the final version of the AVR databook that us old-timers so frequently depended on. How we would have killed for the modern microcontroller selector guide!

Here, Vegard Wollan holds up the actual printed data book from May 1995, the first release of the famous AVR microcontroller to the world. They had to make some changes so this databook has parts listed that Atmel never actually produced, and was missing some other parts. Those 4-months printed book lead times were a killer for everybody.

So there you have it, folks. With billions of chips in the wild, a following of over 290,000 AVR Freaks and nearly 100,000 forum posts around the topic annually, it’s safe to say we’ve come a long way since the earliest days of the 8-bit microcontroller. If you’re not already a member of the growing AVR Freaks community, be sure to head on over to the newly-updated site and join today!

Vegard Wollan reflects on AVR and Arduino

In this segment of my chat with Vegard Wollan, the co-inventor of the AVR explores the symmetry between the highly-popular microcontroller and the Arduino development board.

Personally, one of the great moments was when Vegard revealed that the entire AVR product line was meant from the start to be easy-to-use. This began with the instruction set, the architecture and continues to this day with things like Atmel Studio 6 integrated development environment (IDE), Atmel Spaces collaborative workspace, and Atmel Gallery, the place where you can find thousands of code samples and tutorials.

Vegard Wollan gestures to the AVR schematics as he explains to Paul Rako how ease of use was a primary design goal from the start.

So it is only natural that Arduino was built on this foundation to make their great ecosystem of development boards and their wonderful IDE. You can see Vegard truly appreciates and respects how Massimo Banzi made the entry into AVR programming even easier for both technical and non-technical folks alike.

Today, AVR 8-bit MCUs (as well as Atmel 32-bit ARM®-based MCUs) power a variety of Arduino’s easy-to-use boards including:

• Arduino Uno: The most “standard” board currently available, the Uno is based on the ATmega328. 
• Arduino Yún: The Yún is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega32u4 (datasheet) and the Atheros AR9331.
• Arduino Nano: The Nano is a small, complete, and breadboard-friendly board based on the ATmega328.
• Arduino Mega 2560: The version of the Mega released with the Uno, this version features the ATmega2560, which has twice the memory, and uses the ATmega 8U2 for USB-to-serial communication.
• Arduino Leonardo: Based on the ATmega32u4, the Leonardo is a low-cost Arduino board, featuring the same shape and connectors as the Uno board but with a simpler circuit.
• Arduino Micro: The Micro is based on the ATmega32u4, developed in conjunction with Adafruit.
• Arduino Esplora: Derived from the Arduino Leonardo, the Esplora is a ready-to-use, easy-to-hold controller based on the ATmega32u4.
• Arduino LilyPad: Powered by an ATmega32u4, the LilyPad is designed for wearables and e-textiles, allowing for the board to be sewn into fabric and similarly mounted power supplies, sensors and actuators with conductive thread.
• Arduino Due: Based on an Atmel ARM Cortex®-M3 processor-based MCU — also known as the SAM3 MCU — the Due board is ideal for home automation projects and can run up to 96MHz.
• Arduino Wi-Fi Shield: Built for Wi-Fi applications, the Arduino Wi-Fi shield is powered by the Atmel AVR UC3 MCU and an H&D wireless module, and provides developers a powerful Wi-Fi interface.
• Arduino Zero: The board is powered by an Atmel SAM D21 MCU, which features a 32-bit ARM Cortex® M0+ core.

If you haven’t had the chance to tune-in to all of Vegard’s 1:1 interviews with the Atmel Analog Aficionado, you can check ’em out here.

Going back to the beginning of AVR with Vegard Wollan

The first episode of this series talked about the very beginning history of the AVR microcontroller chip co-invented by Vegard Wollan. In this clip, we delve into the beauty of Flash memory.

As mentioned in the previous post, engineers used to have to develop their firmware using special ceramic chips with quartz windows.

This early microcontroller has a quartz window in its expensive ceramic package so you can erase the program in an ultraviolet eraser.

Bad enough the chips themselves cost a lot, the real headache was when you had to debug or change your program. You had to pry it out of its socket, and stick it in a ultraviolet eraser for 20 minutes. This really slowed down your code development. It was like playing tennis in molasses.

This UV eraser was used to erase the microcontroller program memory so you could reprogram it with something that you hoped would fix the bugs.

That is what Vegard realized back in the early 1990s: You could make a microcontroller using Flash memory and reprogram in seconds, not hours. Atmel already had a Flash 8051-style micro, so we were a natural to develop the AVR chips.

The aforementioned video touches on the low-power heritage of AVR, which as you already know, Atmel memory products are famous for extremely low power. This advantage was “baked into” the AVR products, since they knew that many applications would run on battery power.

Vegard was also nice enough to bring some early AVR prototypes from his lab in Norway.

Vegard Wollan holds one of the first 10 AVR prototype chips, the S1200.

When Vegard holds up the various prototype chips, you can see the pride of an innovator on his face. I think every engineer gets a real charge out of that first prototype, as even I have a collection of my own at home.

In case you missed our earlier segment on the history of AVR, you can check that out here. Feeling inspired to create and share your own 8-bit ideas? Enter them in our Simply AVR Design Contest today for your chance at $1,500!

Vegard Wollan talks about the history of AVR

We were lucky enough to drag Vegard Wollan into the Atmel Studio while he was visiting headquarters from Norway a few weeks ago. For those of you who may not know, Vegard is commonly believed to be the “V” in AVR. After having spent hours in the Studio, we decided to break the film into separate segments — this one is about the history of the AVR. And, what better day to recount the earliest days of the revolutionary microcontroller than Throwback Thursday?

You young whippersnappers might not realize it, but Atmel started life as a memory company. We made EEPROM memory, and soon branched into Flash memory. Vegard and his pal Alf Bogen (the “A” in AVR) met on computer forums while students at Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, also called NTNU, or the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. They saw the need for a microcontroller based on Flash memory, which you could reprogram as many times as needed, even when it was in-circuit.

AVR inventor Vegard Wollan holds his Master’s thesis from college that began the AVR MCU architecture.

This was at the time where development engineers had to buy expensive ceramic package microcontrollers with a quartz window. You would program the part with your Data IO programmer, and when you had to make any change, you took the part out of its socket and put it in an ultraviolet eraser for 20 minutes. Savagery.

So Vegard and Alf pitched their MCU design to Atmel, who immediately saw the great potential in it. Atmel had already started to make 8051-style MCUs in the Colorado fab facility, which we had just purchased from Honeywell. One great thing about those parts was most instructions executed in one cycle instead of the 4 to 12 that the original 8051 needed.

So when Vegard explained the AVR was a RISC (reduced instruction set) machine designed to execute instruction in one cycle, it was music to Atmel’s ears. You could say that AVR was RISC before RISC was cool. And, it explains why AVR has passionate followers just like ARM-core RISC chips also have passionate followers… I guess that explains why Atmel makes 8- and 32-bit AVR chips, as well as a whole line of Atmel | SMART ARM-based chips.

The other cool thing that this video touches upon is how AVR chips were designed to run C programs well. You might remember the early days, when Intel would make whatever hardware people thought was cool and Microsoft would program in ways that software people thought was cool. Things didn’t always line up. I remember how you had to do a software reboot to take a 80286 out of protected mode, or that “thunking” in Win 95 to switch between 16- and 32-bit.

Vegard is a Renaissance Man that understood the hardware implications of good software design. So he made sure that C code would compile superbly into AVR assembly language. My buddy Wayne Yamaguchi routinely writes C programs for AVR that compile down into a few hundred bytes. AVR is one of those magnificent examples of computer science, not computer “slap this together and push this out so we can sell it”.

Like all Norwegians, Vegard is incredibly modest about his contribution. He credits his co-founder, and the team at Atmel that developed the AVR. But you just have to look at the billions of AVR chips that Atmel has sold to see what a remarkable thing Vegard created. Check out the video and stay tuned for the next installment.