ATA874x - Atmel's AVR Microcontrollers Now Integrate RF Transmitter Functionality to Address Industrial Applications

As a well-known market player in smart metering and home automation with its wireless IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee products, Atmel now takes the additional step to address the requirements in the diversified proprietary wireless market segments.

With a low-power AVR CPU, a highly effective RF transmitter, and a sleep-mode power consumption of only 160 nA, the ATA874x family members are uniquely optimized to address battery-driven applications such as remote controls or garage door openers. The tiny QFN24 packages, measuring only 5 mm x 5 mm, allow the creation of extremely small designs at highly competitive costs. Customers can benefit from a bill of material (BOM) cost savings of up to 30 percent and board-area savings of up to 50 percent, when compared with conventional solutions.

These new ATA874x devices are highly integrated, and incorporate Atmel's well-accepted RF transmitter technology that have sold over 50 million units to date.

The ATA874x devices offer maximum flexibility using the ATtiny44V CPU, allowing in-system flash memory re-programming. By executing powerful instructions in a single-clock cycle, the ATtiny44V achieves throughputs approaching 1 MIPS per MHz that enable system designers to optimize power consumption versus processing speed. The powerful AVR controller simplifies hardware and software designs.

The key features of Atmel's new highly-integrated, microcontroller-based RF solution include proven technologies shipped in various products since 2001. The market-leading 8-bit microcontroller AVR CPU has been incorporated into countless products and Atmel has shipped more than a billion units. Atmel's RF technology has satisfied even the strictest quality and reliability demands of the automotive market. Customers that have worked with AVR or earlier RF products can reuse existing RF transmitter or AVR designs and software, thus reducing both development costs and time-to-market.

The ATA874x single-chip narrow band transmitter family complements the well-established Atmel ISM band receivers, such as ATA8201 and ATA8202 or ATA8203/4/5, providing a total end-to-end solution to its customers.