Atmel

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Atmel Corporation
Type Public (NASDAQ: ATML}
Founded 1984
Headquarters San Jose, California, USA
Industry Semiconductors
Products Microcontrollers
Flash memory
Employees 7800
Website www.atmel.com
Atmel ATMEGA32 microcontroller
Atmel ATMEGA32 microcontroller
Atmel AT90S2333 microcontroller
Atmel AT90S2333 microcontroller

Atmel Corporation (NASDAQ: ATML) is a manufacturer of semiconductors, founded in 1984. Its focus is on system-level solutions built around flash microcontrollers. Its products include microcontrollers (including 8051 derivatives and AT91SAM and AT91CAP ARM-based micros), and its own Atmel AVR and AVR32 architectures, radio frequency (RF) devices, EEPROM and Flash memory devices (including DataFlash-based memory), and a number of application-specific products. Atmel supplies its devices as standard products, ASICs, or ASSPs depending on the requirements of its customers. In some cases it is able to offer system on chip solutions.

Atmel serves a range of application segments including consumer, communications, computer networking, industrial, medical, automotive, aerospace and military. It is an industry leader in secure systems, notably for the smart card market.

The President and CEO of Atmel is Steven Laub.

Atmel owns four semiconductor facilities:

Atmel announced the sale of its North Tyneside facility on October 08 2007. The manufacturing equipment has been sold to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.(TSMC) and the property and associated land to Highbridge Business Park Limited who already own an adjacent business park (Cobalt Business Park) and are likely to redevelop the facility to provide commercial office space. The closure will lead to the loss of 600 jobs when production ceases in early 2008.

Among its chief competitors are STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, Freescale, Analog Devices and Microchip Technology.

Contents

[edit] History

Atmel introduced the first 8-bit Flash microcontroller in 1993, based on the 8051 core [1].

[edit] Controversy

The former chairman and CEO, George Perlegos, was terminated after an eight-month investigation into theft by Atmel's travel manager. The Board of Directors accused him and his brother Gust (an executive vice president of the company) of spending US$235,000 of the company's money on airplane tickets for themselves and their immediate families.[2] However, the Delaware Chancery Court expressed its "discomfort with the thoroughness and fairness of the investigation and with the decisions."

In August of 2006, Perlegos called a meeting to replace five of the existing board of directors, which the Board of Directors attempted to cancel. In March of 2007, the Delaware Chancery Court ruled that the shareholder meeting must proceed. This action was completed before Perlegos was dismissed as a board member, but after he was removed as president. The action resulted in a special shareholder vote.[3] The meeting was held on May 18. According to the certified vote count, one of the directors proposed by Perlegos garnered just under 30% of the votes, short of the 50% needed.[4]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Atmel's Self-Programming Flash Microcontrollers White Paper
  2. ^ Letter from Steve Laub to Atmel shareholders, dated April 11, 2007
  3. ^ http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070315/20070315005807.html?.v=1
  4. ^ Atmel Investor Relations

[edit] External links

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