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Atmel Unveils New AVR Microcontrollers for Battery Operated and Portable Applications

Strategic Insights

— 2 min read

Atmel Corporation announced three new members of the megaAVR Flash Microcontroller Family: the mega48, mega88, and mega168. These devices are designed to address the requirements of battery operated and portable applications, offering a high-performance and low-power solution. The mega48, mega88, and mega168 combine a code-efficient and powerful microcontroller with low-power Flash memory technology, single-cycle execution at 24 MHz, and an optimized instruction set. This enables engineers to reduce design time, development costs, and ultimately production costs.

Key Takeaways:

  • The mega48, mega88, and mega168 are designed to address the requirements of battery operated and portable applications, offering a high-performance and low-power solution.
  • The devices combine a code-efficient and powerful microcontroller with low-power Flash memory technology, single-cycle execution at 24 MHz, and an optimized instruction set.
  • The mega48, mega88, and mega168 have a minimum operating voltage of 1.8V, with a clock speed of up to 6 MHz, allowing for significantly reduced power consumption.
  • The devices feature 5 different power-saving modes, including a 100 nA power-down mode, to enable applications to run from smaller and cheaper batteries while maintaining performance.
  • The debugWIRE interface enables On-Chip Debug, a feature usually available only on larger devices, with the JTAGICE and AVR Studio user interface providing complete control of the Microcontroller resources.
  • The integrated analog-to-digital converter removes an external component from the system, the On-Chip Calibrated RC Oscillator may eliminate the external crystal or resonator, and the Self Programmable Flash enables remote updates of the program and parameter storage in the flash memory.
  • The mega48, mega88, and mega168 have Pin-Change Interrupts on all 23 I/O lines and 6 Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) channels, making the devices very responsive to real-world events and capable of controlling multiple analog outputs.

Statistics:

  • Typical power consumption at 1MHz, 1.8V is less than 250 uA, at 32kHz less than 15 uA.
  • The 10k unit price is US$1.50 for mega48, US$1.80 for mega88, and US$2.10 for mega168.
  • Availability:

+ mega48 available today.

+ mega88 and mega168 will be sampling in April 2004.

  • Evaluation tools are available now, including the STK500 starter kit priced at US$79, and the US$299 JTAGICE mk-II used with the integrated debugWIRE On-Chip Debug module for emulation.

Sources:

  • Atmel Corporation
  • Atmel Corporation press release, February 17 /PRNewswire/
  • ATmega48: http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/product_card.asp?PN=ATmega48
  • ATmega88: http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/product_card.asp?PN=ATmega88
  • ATmega168: http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/product_card.asp?PN=ATmega168

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