ROUSSET, France, October 28 /PRNewswire/ --

- Portable Design China Readers Voted the AT91SAM9G20 Best in Class for Performance and Performance Functionality vs Cost

Atmel(R) Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML) announced today that its 400 MHz AT91SAM9G20 ARM926EJ-S(TM)-based embedded microprocessor has been voted one of the five best microcontrollers by the 2008 Portable Design China Reader's Survey. The AT91SAM9G20 was the overall winner in two significant categories: performance, and performance functionality vs cost. The awards were the outcome of one month of on-line voting by Portable Design China's extensive readership base.

Alfredo Vadillo, Atmel's Managing Director for ARM(R) microcontrollers, commented, This is the second consecutive year that an Atmel microcontroller has won a leading product award from the readers of Portable Design China. This underlines the leadership of our MCUs in the essential marketplace for portable devices, and also indicates their high level of acceptance in the Chinese market. The AT91SAM9G20, with its outstanding combination of high performance and low power consumption, at a very affordable price, is one of the exciting new products that we are adding to our well-established AT91SAM ARM-based product family, in order to ensure its continued leadership.

About Atmel's Award-Winning AT91SAM9G20. The 400 MHz AT91SAM9G20 features Atmel's market-leading peripheral DMA (direct memory access) and distributed memory architecture that, together with the 6-layer bus matrix, enables multiple simultaneous data transfers between memories, peripherals and external interfaces without consuming CPU clock cycles. The external bus interface (EBI) is clocked at 133 MHz for high-speed transfers to off-chip memories. This architecture gives the device the high internal and external data bandwidth required by many embedded networked applications.

Networking and communications requirements are met by an Ethernet 10/100 Base T MAC, seven USARTs, 12M bps USB Full Speed Dual Host and Device ports, dual SPI, SSC and Two-Wire Interface (TWI). Image sensing requirements are met by a fully integrated Image Sensor Interface (ISI).

Power consumption in full-power operating mode at 400 MHz with all peripherals turned on is only 80 mW. The AT91SAM9G20 also features four reduced-power modes, including Backup Mode where the main power supply is off and the device power consumption is sufficiently low (9uW) for an extended period of operation under battery supply.

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), Atmel logo and combinations thereof, and others, are registered trademarks or trademarks of Atmel Corporation or its subsidiaries. ARM(R) and others are registered trademarks or trademarks of ARM Ltd. Other terms and product names may be trademarks of others.

Information:

Atmel's AT91SAM9G20 product information may be retrieved at http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/product_card.asp?part_id=4337

Press Contacts: Peter Bishop, Communications Manager, Atmel Rousset Tel: +33(0)4-42-53-61-50, Email: peter.bishop@atmel.com Helen Perlegos, Public Relations Tel: +1-408-487-2963, Email: hperlegos@atmel.com Web site: http://www.atmel.com http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/product_card.asp?part_id=4337

Peter Bishop, Communications Manager of Atmel Rousset, +33(0)4-42-53-61-50, peter.bishop@atmel.com, or Helen Perlegos, Public Relations of Atmel Corporation, +1-408-487-2963, hperlegos@atmel.com