San Jose, CA, January 21, 2008 . . . Atmel® Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML), announced today its AT91SAM9RL64 ARM9-based interactive GUI microcontroller with high throughput, ideal peripherals and OS support to implement “smart” control panel applications that can provide access to content including user manuals, video clips and audio, as well as offering a robust interface to system control functions. The SAM9RL64 can be used as the main processor in a system or as the co-processo
r dedicated to the user interface. A USB High Speed link provides the bandwidth to transfer streaming video between the host- and the AT91SAM9RL64
co-processor.
User Experience. The buttons, dials, switches and joysticks typically used to control electronic products are rapidly being replaced by touch screens with icons that beat or zoom when selected or fly over the screen as the user navigates through the available content. Increasingly systems are voice activated, being able to both talk and listen to the user. Interactive video content is replacing static lists and instructions.
While 8- and 16-bit microcontrollers are used for user interfaces in cost sensitive consumer applications, they are, however, not capable of dealing with the amount of processing and data movement required to manage a state-of-the-art interactive graphical user interface. Atmel’s AT91SAM9RL64 is a single-chip “smart” panel solution with 200-plus MIPS, a 6-layer bus matrix and DMA on all on-chip peripherals to support the high data rates associated with screen refresh, image processing, user interaction and the creation of the dynamics guaranteeing a good user experience. On-chip peripherals include LCD and touch screen controllers, USB High Speed device, 24 DMA channels, an MCI/SDIO interface, 5 UARTs, SPI, dual SSC, AC’97, 6 Timers, 4 PWMs with high-drive I/Os, dual TWI and a battery backup RTC with associated registers.
Large On-chip Tightly Coupled SRAM Support