ESC Silicon Valley, San Jose, CA, May 4, 2011 – Atmel^® Corporation (NASDAQ: ATML), a leader in microcontroller and touch solutions, today announced the availability of the ZigBee RF4CE wireless evaluation kit designed for ZigBee PRO and ZigBee RF4CE application development and prototyping. Atmel is also launching the REB231ED-EK evaluation kit with antenna diversity support for the Atmel AT86RF231 device. 

The kits support ZigBee application profiles such as Smart Energy, Home and Building Automation, Remote Control, as well as IEEE 802.15.4 and proprietary wireless applications. ZigBee-compliant software stacks are available for download from Atmel website. Both kits also provide users the ability to evaluate high data rates modes of the Atmel ATmega128RFA1 and AT86RF231 devices.

“As the ZigBee wireless market continues to expand from smart energy to building automation and consumer applications, Atmel continues to provide customers the necessary solutions to help bring their applications to market quickly,” said Magnus Pedersen, product marketing director of MCU wireless solutions at Atmel Corporation. “With the release of the new ZigBee RF4CE and PRO evaluation kits, developers can now easily prototype their system designs and bring their products faster to market. Atmel is committed to the wireless ZigBee market and will continue to expand in this space.”

The Atmel ZigBee evaluation kits come complete with reference boards based on the Atmel ATmega128RFA1 and AT86RF231 wireless, low-power transceivers and the software stacks ready for download on the website. The kits also allow convenient RF performance evaluation and power consumption measurement.

Pricing and Availability

The Atmel RF4CE Remote Control Evaluation Kit is available now on the Atmel Store at: http://store.atmel.com/PartDetail.aspx?q=p:10500270 for USD $439. Pricing for the REB231ED-EK kit is available in Q2 2011 for USD $239.

For more information about Atmel’s ATmega128RFA1, please click the following link:

http://www.atmel.com/wireless/single-chip. 

About ZigBee PRO and ZigBee RF4CE

ZigBee PRO is a profile stack approved by the ZigBee Alliance that adds advance features and greater flexibility to the original specification, especially related to ease-of-use and support for larger networks. ZigBee RF4CE is designed to be deployed in a wide range of remotely-controlled audio/visual consumer electronics products, such as TVs and set-top boxes. It provides many advantages over existing remote control solutions, including richer communication and increased reliability, enhanced features and flexibility, interoperability and no line-of-sight barrier. 

About Atmel

Atmel Corporation (NASDAQ: ATML) is a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of microcontrollers, capacitive touch solutions, advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory and radio frequency (RF) components. Leveraging one of the industry’s broadest intellectual property (IP) technology portfolios, Atmel is able to provide the electronics industry with complete system solutions focused on industrial, consumer, communications, computing and automotive markets.

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