Atmel maXTouch goes big with touch sensors - support for tablets up to 15" screen size

Industry-proven Atmel mXT1386 and mXT616 chipsets shipping in production quantities; Powers upcoming tablets with touchscreens up to 15 inches

SAN JOSE, Calif., Dec. 6, 2010 -- Atmel® Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML), a leader in microcontroller and touch solutions, today announced it is shipping production quantities of the Atmel maXTouch™ mXT1386 and mXT616 chipsets for large touchscreens up to 15 inches. Atmel maXTouch technology has established a leading position in one of the fastest growing markets in the entire semiconductor industry. The new mXT1386/mXT616 chipsets are the newest members of the maXTouch family and will power a number of upcoming touch devices including tablet PCs, smartbooks, mobile Internet devices (MIDs), Netbooks, PC notebooks and a range of industrial applications.

Atmel mXT1386/mXT616 chipsets offer industry-best multi-touch with unlimited touch capability; lowest power consumption; fastest response time; and the highest signal-to-noise ratio to detect the most sensitive touches with a finger nail, stylus and a user with gloves on his hands. These chipsets also reject unintended touches including grip and palm rejection to enable an easy-to-use, intuitive and seamless touch experience for the user. Atmel mXT1386/mXT616 chipsets enable enhanced gestures, faster response times and the highest touch performance for the best accuracy, linearity and repeatability.

"The tablet market represents one of the fastest growing opportunities for touch screen controllers in today's market," said Rhoda Alexander, Director Monitor Research, IHS iSuppli. "The next generation of touch tablets will incorporate significantly faster response times, greater touch accuracy, and the ability to differentiate between intentional and unintentional touches. Users will be able to move beyond the current two-touch approach to applications incorporating ten touches and more, opening the door to a wealth of new application possibilities."

A complete solution is available for the Atmel mXT1386/mXT616 maXTouch chipsets based on a variety of ITO partners, LCD suppliers and touch module vendors. These partners offer an open eco-system for innovative product development and provide system designers more choices to develop touch functionality in their touchscreen devices. Atmel maXTouch technologies also include software drivers with a number of operating systems including Android™, Linux®, Microsoft® Windows® and webOS.  The Atmel mXT1386 has also received the "Compatible with Windows 7" logo for over 10 multi-touches on a 10.1 inch maXTouch™ technology touchscreen device.

"Atmel maXTouch is already powering the most advanced, intuitive smartphones in the market," said Binay Bajaj, senior product marketing manager, touch products, Atmel Corporation. "Atmel maXTouch mXT1386 and mXT616 chipsets will power an avalanche of tablets — and other touch products—coming to the market in 2011 and beyond. We are excited to enable the general market to develop products with touchscreens up to 15 inches with production availability of our maXTouch products."

About Atmel maXTouch Technologies

With true unlimited touch functionality and stylus support, the maXTouch technology will enable exciting new applications, such as tablets, Netbooks and MIDs. The microcontroller technology, combined with proprietary algorithms, offers a better touch experience for users of tablets and other applications. The larger screen solution is an enhancement of existing maXTouch products that provide best-in-class configurability to exceed today's user interface requirements for applications such as tablets.

For more information, visit http://www.atmel.com/products/touchscreens/. To see the latest Atmel videos, visit the Atmel YouTube Channel at http://www.atmel.com/youtube. Or follow Atmel on Twitter at www.atmel.com/twitter.

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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