Atmel Corporation was a designer and manufacturer of semiconductors before being acquired by Microchip Technology in 2016. It was founded in 1984. The company focuses on embedded systems built around microcontrollers. Its products include microcontrollers (8-bit AVR, 32-bit AVR, 32-bit ARM-based, automotive grade, and 8-bit Intel 8051 derivatives) radio frequency (RF) devices including Wi-Fi, EEPROM, and flash memory devices, symmetric and asymmetric security chips, touch sensors and controllers, and application-specific products. Atmel supplies its devices as standard products, application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), or application-specific standard product (ASSPs) depending on the requirements of its customers.
Atmel serves applications including consumer, communications, computer networking, industrial, medical, automotive, aerospace and military. It specializes in microcontroller and touch systems, especially for embedded systems.
Atmel's corporate headquarters is in San Jose, California, in the North San Jose Innovation District. Other locations include Trondheim, Norway; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Chennai, India; Shanghai, China; Taipei, Taiwan; Rousset, France; Nantes, France; Patras, Greece; Heilbronn, Germany; Munich, Germany; Whiteley, United Kingdom; Cairo, Egypt. Atmel makes much of its product line at vendor fabrication facilities. It owns a facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado that manufactures its XSense line of flexible touch sensors.
In 2016, Microchip agreed to buy Atmel for US$3.6 (equivalent to $3.76 in 2018) billion in a deal brokered by JPMorgan Chase and Qatalyst.
Atmel Corporation was founded in 1984, by George Perlegos. Atmel was an acronym for “advanced technology for memory and logic”. Perlegos had worked in the memory group of Intel in the 1970s and had co-founded Seeq Technology to manufacture EPROM memory. Using only US$30,000 in capital, Atmel was initially operated as a fabless company, using Sanyo and General Instrument to make the chip wafers. The first Atmel memory products used less power than competitors. Customers included Motorola, Nokia, and Ericsson. In 1987, Intel sued Atmel for patent infringement.Rather than fight the patent claim, Atmel redesigned its products to use different intellectual property. These had better performance and even lower power consumption. In addition, Atmel then entered the flash memory business that Intel had focused on. Atmel used US$60 million in venture capital for the 1989 purchase of a fabrication facility from Honeywell in Colorado Springs. Atmel then invested another US$30 million in manufacturing technology.