Atmel expands 6-pin AVR microcontroller family

SAN JOSE, USA: Atmel Corp. announced three new 6-pin picoPower AVR microcontrollers. The ATtiny4, ATtiny5, and ATtiny9 are pin- and code- compatible, include a rich feature set, and execute code 6-times faster than the closest competitor.

Using the AVR CPU, the 6-pin tinyAVR® microcontrollers can process up to 12 MIPS at 12 MHz, six times the performance of any other similar sized microcontroller in the market. This processing efficiency significantly reduces the time in active mode and increases the time spent in power saving sleep modes. Combined with Atmel's picoPower technology, this ensures the industry's leading power consumption.

ATtiny4, ATtiny5, and ATtiny9 are pin- and functional-compatible to the existing ATtiny10. For customers, this means effortless migration between the devices in-between different projects with different requirements. The 6-pin tinyAVR microcontrollers are also pin-compatible with similar devices from competitors. This enables customer to increase the performance and reduce the power consumption in their existing designs.

"The ATtiny10 was launched in April and we were overwhelmed by the rapid market acceptance and strong demand for this device, which is the smallest AVR microcontroller. It is clear that developers needed innovation in this market segment," said Jukka Eskelinen, Product Marketing Director, tinyAVR for Atmel.

"Atmel is now expanding the offering with three new parts with different memory densities and feature sets. With more parts available, engineers can cost optimize their applications without sacrificing the features they need."

All tinyAVR microcontrollers use the standard AVR microcontroller development tools. The AVR Studio integrated development environment is available free on Atmel's website.

Samples of the ATtiny4, ATtiny5 and ATtiny9 are available now. Volume prices for 5K units start at $0.34.