Microchip buys Atmel

[Mikebits]

The single most largest revenue maker in the MCU market is automotive (I can't imagine the hobby market is even a blip on the sales chart). According to EE Times, the merger will position Microchip a dominant position in a market that is expected to grow well beyond 2017.

Microchip Technology Inc.’s pending $3.8 billion acquisition of Atmel Corp. would move Microchip into the No. 3 position among microcontroller vendors less than two months after NXP Semiconductors NV moved into the No. 2 spot with the acquisition of Freescale Semiconductor Inc.

”We see a compelling financial and strategic rational to acquire Atmel,” said Steve Sanghi, Microchip’s chairman, president and CEO, in a conference call earlier this week. “ The combination of Microchip and Atmel will create an MCU powerhouse and move Microchip from the No. 4 to the No. 3 position in microcontrollers based on the most recent Gartner marketshare data.”

**broken link removed**

 

[Tony Stewart]

According to IHS... Survey says...

I guess Microchip means dominant in the "Others" category, which is still pretty large.

 

[MrAl]

The substrates silicon wafers for CMOS are usually P type doped silicon for improved insulation, but when the input or outputs of CMOS exceed the supply threshold of 1 silicon diode their is an SCR Thysristor switch effect with a PNPN vertical layer junction which effectively is a shoot-thru failure between Vcc and Vdd. Since CMOS has been made upto today, they use Schottky diodes on all inputs to each rail to shunt this and inhibit this failure mode often caused by ESD or any source of voltage > 0.5 V outside the supply rail. JUst like in voltatile memory logic and Thrystors alike this memory effect is cleared when supply is removed and so the failure mode stops and normal operation resumes.... unless the metallic layers and semiconductive doping layers are fabracated to give lower ESR, then the net ESR is low enough to cause the chip to exceed 150'C and the epoxy to start to smell, or even get hotter and start to crack.

We always used mixed vendors in HCxxx CMOS during the 70's& 80's but knew if we wanted fastest performance to use certain vendors like Fairchild becuase they had lower ESR , slightly more current drive but also slightly more self-destructive when an SCR latchup incident took place. One such time was when we were field testing a SCADA , ISDN broadband WAN with AMR, teleshopping and graphical weather data and a high speed serial port to the TV for the class of computers in those days that we had such events. Static on the TV and discharge to the remote serial keyboard to the cards in the basement which experienced SCR latchup. The ones like Motorola CMOS which had 300 Ohms per port at 12V would not fail but get warm, and others like Fairchild with less than 150 Ohms per port ESR would get too hot and self-destruct. We were able to fix the ESD problem with better ground wire to the basement to the TV channel changer serial port and keyboard for teleshopping.

But it wasn't until years later that I understood why some were more likely to be non-destructive than others. Vcc^2/ESR= Pd and 1Watt into a chip rated for 250mW was going to rise 4x as much. This all has to do with the design of the chip and its doping concetration levels and the effective RdsOn of each switch and the inherent defective SCR latchup effect from over voltage. Not only can you get latchup on an input stage , but also an output stage ( but harder ) YOu can also toggle the state of a Flip Flop by back drive an ESD pulse into Q from ESD, which is why we must use an extra inverter to buffer Flip Flops driving long wires to prevent this defect in design, inherent in all CMOS logic for Flip Flops.

Even those the planar junctions are depletion mode FETS, the vertical layers when biased outside the supply range form the SCR latchup effect with bipolar characteristics.
View attachment 98857

Now today for bipolar transistors if we want exceptionally low saturation resistance in a driver , we use FETs but if the switching capacitance is too high and we need high voltage, we turn to Transistors made by Xetex (or now Diodes Inc) super-saturated devices with Rce values in milliohms so with 1 Amp it is now possible for Vce to be <20mV. Although different than RdsOn for a FET, the patents are similar in describing the doping and channel topology which makes their devices better but also much more expensive but low Vce/Ice and high Vce ratings with very low capacitance

Hi,

When i first starting using bipolar transistors from the then Zetex i was amazed at how low their saturation voltage was. Made for some high efficiency switching converters. I had or still have one of their Schottky diodes with forward voltage of 0.2 volts.

 

[Tony Stewart]

Yes my matching the BE and BC diode characteristics during saturation , the Vce is the difference voltage and can be made very small. This requires special transistor design.

 

[schmitt trigger]

I had opened up another thread in the subject, but Ian steered me to this one.
So I'm going to continue my discussion here. This is what I had posted earlier:

Do you know what is going to happen? Well, according to the press statement published on their website, they offer the following golden nuggets:

"Microchip also announced that Atmel’s sales and earnings for the quarter ending March 31, 2016 are expected to be significantly lower than Atmel’s December 31, 2015 quarterly results."

"Steve Sanghi, Microchip’s Chairman and CEO said, “The performance of Atmel since we engaged in discussions in August of 2015 has been disappointing."

"We understand Atmel’s business well and we plan to rapidly integrate Atmel into Microchip, grow its sales, improve its gross margin percentage, bring down operating expenses and improve profitability."

In other words, layoffs, plant closures and eventual phasing out of Atmel's product line.

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

I dont think it would be wise to do that because of the customer base they must have gained because of Atmel. I dont have all their inside information though so i cant say for sure. They dont seem to be that stupid, which would mean buying a company that was already going down hill just to close it. They must have believed they could turn a profit. I guess we will find out in the not too distant future
Maybe they can rename the Atmel products to "PIC-something", like the PIC-328P so all the Arduino's would be using the PIC-328P then
Alternately, maybe they are trying to scare people into buying a lot of Atmel products now while they are 'still' available, making them think they wont be available one day soon.

 

[atferrari]

Alternately, maybe they are trying to scare people into buying a lot of Atmel products now while they are 'still' available, making them think they wont be available one day soon.

Who would eventually do that? Hobbyists or big manufacturers? Is that reasonable in this business? Curious about that.

 

[be80be]

Hobby market is kind of big but there's a lot of atmel parts in stuff that's not got a arduino anywhere lol but the big move is iot of things. Is what I'm thinking

 

[MrAl]

Who would eventually do that? Hobbyists or big manufacturers? Is that reasonable in this business? Curious about that.

Hi,

Well, me, for one

Anyone who has a large investment in equipment that has to be repaired in the future. They dont want to have to replace the equipment if they can get away with it, just fix it.
You mean reasonable for Microchip? I dont know, but it's so hard to say anything is sure in this economy where they seem to try almost anything to get sales. I'm just guessing though, throwing out some ideas and see what actually comes about in the future for MC.

I do like their PIC chips, and if they came out with a board that is comparable both in functionality and price to the boards like the the Arduino Nano for example, i'd hop on board in a heartbeat. I can get ten Nanos for the price of one of their PIC based boards right now, and i can use a Nano in a LOT of different types of products both simple and very complex. If they can get near that target price i'd definitely get some of their boards as soon as tomorrow or the day after, no joking. If they had some, in that same price range, that worked with the Arduino IDE without too much extra trouble, i would get on the phone right now and order some yesterday or the day before that

 

[NorthGuy]

I can get ten Nanos for the price of one of their PIC based boards right now, and i can use a Nano in a LOT of different types of products both simple and very complex. If they can get near that target price i'd definitely get some of their boards as soon as tomorrow or the day after, no joking.

Why would you need a board? Arduino need boards because they need to install a USB chip and pre-program their bootloader. Once this is done, they can be used with Arduino software. That's the only point to have boards.

With PICs, you don't need any of these. You just use single chips. You use ICSP connection which lets you program it, or debug it in real time! You can insert a single chip everywhere where Arduino nano could go - onto breadboard, solder it on PCB, can even do dead bugs if you like. And they are smaller and many of them are cheaper than Arduino nano.

What's more. If you like your project, you can switch to really small TQFP, QFN or SSOP footprint and start the commercial production without changing anything. Better yet, you still can program and debug them right on your production board. And PCB manufacturing is now as cheap as never, so it is not really expensive to print professional PCBs for your home project.

This is much much better than Arduino bootloader model.

Did I forget to mention that you have hundereds of PICs to choose from (not just few Arduino models).

 

[nsaspook]

I had opened up another thread in the subject, but Ian steered me to this one.
So I'm going to continue my discussion here. This is what I had posted earlier:

Do you know what is going to happen? Well, according to the press statement published on their website, they offer the following golden nuggets:

"Microchip also announced that Atmel’s sales and earnings for the quarter ending March 31, 2016 are expected to be significantly lower than Atmel’s December 31, 2015 quarterly results."

"Steve Sanghi, Microchip’s Chairman and CEO said, “The performance of Atmel since we engaged in discussions in August of 2015 has been disappointing."

"We understand Atmel’s business well and we plan to rapidly integrate Atmel into Microchip, grow its sales, improve its gross margin percentage, bring down operating expenses and improve profitability."

In other words, layoffs, plant closures and eventual phasing out of Atmel's product line.

Stuff happens when others have a chance to look at the books in detail:
**broken link removed**

Thus Sanghi proposed and the Microchip board accepted that it would pay half the cash and bonus severance Atmel offered. Sanghi and Moorty agreed to take a 50% pay cut for a quarter as part of the deal.

“That’s affective today…I took a bullet for the employees of Atmel two days after they were my employees,” Sanghi said. “We’re not the bad guys or a bad company, it was a terrible situation where [Atmel employees] were led to understand something without letting us take this into consideration in our offering price, so we are making a personal sacrifice to appeal to employees,” he added.

“I received lots of letters from employees of Atmel applauding our sacrifice,” said Sanghi.
...
Atmel is the “worst performing company we ever bought,” Sanghi said.

Microchip had operating profits that were 29.5% of sales in its December quarter compared to 9.4% for Atmel. “For the March quarter Microchip got better and their results were terrible,” he said.

Atmel revenues in 2015 were down 17.6% from 2014. In the March 2016 quarter revenues were down 31% from the same quarter in 2015, he said.

“This company is atrophying…it’s in trouble and a lot of improvements need to be made to bring it up to the Microchip level in technology, management and sales,” Sanghi said.

It’s too early to say how many layoffs and other cuts will be needed, Sanghi said. “The integration plan is not done…definitely there will be some cuts, there are no acquisitions without cuts…[but] we are four days into the merger and Atmel gave us no access prior to the closing…so the plan is [still] being developed,” he said.

 

[ChrisP58]

Hi,

Well, me, for one

Anyone who has a large investment in equipment that has to be repaired in the future. They dont want to have to replace the equipment if they can get away with it, just fix it.
You mean reasonable for Microchip? I dont know, but it's so hard to say anything is sure in this economy where they seem to try almost anything to get sales. I'm just guessing though, throwing out some ideas and see what actually comes about in the future for MC.

I do like their PIC chips, and if they came out with a board that is comparable both in functionality and price to the boards like the the Arduino Nano for example, i'd hop on board in a heartbeat. I can get ten Nanos for the price of one of their PIC based boards right now, and i can use a Nano in a LOT of different types of products both simple and very complex. If they can get near that target price i'd definitely get some of their boards as soon as tomorrow or the day after, no joking. If they had some, in that same price range, that worked with the Arduino IDE without too much extra trouble, i would get on the phone right now and order some yesterday or the day before that

Arduino is not an Atmel product. It's an independently developed product line that just happens to use an Atmel processor. And one story that I've heard is that the PIC was a candidate for use on the Arduino. The tipping point was that Atmel had an open source C compiler. And it's the open source aspect that has made the Arduino such a widely accepted and supported product line.

 

[be80be]

Yep it would of been a pic on the arduino had they had a free compiler. But there is a arduino like ide that works with a hand full of pics and runs the same code as the arduino called the pinguino It work really well I think. Here a screenshot of the chips it can use if some would get on the band wagon maybe it would be even better LOL

 

[MrAl]

Arduino is not an Atmel product. It's an independently developed product line that just happens to use an Atmel processor. And one story that I've heard is that the PIC was a candidate for use on the Arduino. The tipping point was that Atmel had an open source C compiler. And it's the open source aspect that has made the Arduino such a widely accepted and supported product line.

Hello,

So who said it was?

I dont remember saying that the Arduino was an Atmel product, but it uses the Atmel chip. All i said was if MC had a similar board for a SIMILAR price, i would jump on it. MC makes boards too, or at least did at one time (i dont keep up on them as much as i used to) so it makes sense to think about MC making boards like Arduino themselves only with PIC chips. Of course if anyone else under the sun made them again for a similar price i would be very interested too. I dont really care who makes the board though, what i care most about is getting a board at a price similar to the Nano that has similar functionality.

The Nano is a whole USB interface development board about the size of a large DIP package, and the cost is very low, less than most MC chips alone cost. If anyone makes a board like that for PIC's that would be very nice, as long as the development equipment didnt cost a small fortune. MC wants to charge for everything so they got left out in the Arduino package.

 

[MrAl]

Yep it would of been a pic on the arduino had they had a free compiler. But there is a arduino like ide that works with a hand full of pics and runs the same code as the arduino called the pinguino It work really well I think. Here a screenshot of the chips it can use if some would get on the band wagon maybe it would be even better LOLView attachment 99575

Hello there,

Yes that looks decent, but those boards are still a little esoteric and more importantly, much more expensive.
The problems with expensive boards are many:
1. Burn one and you're out a fortune.
2. Producing a new product means buying another expensive board.
3. Cant give them out as gifts as easily (i got my first Arduino as a gift).

Do they even make those boards anymore, or to put it another way, can you still get one of those boards populated with chips?

 

[be80be]

I make my own it's not really hard but this is more for fun with me your right about price but maybe that's why atmel is going broke you can buy a whole board for under $4 dollars. Some even cheaper
Some ones not making money there when your splitting penny's you better hope shipping don't go up or your labor wants a raise

 

[NorthGuy]

The Nano is a whole USB interface development board about the size of a large DIP package, and the cost is very low, less than most MC chips alone cost.

For the same price, you can buy a PIC with built-in USB controller, built-in debugging capabilities, and better periphery in the size (and shape) of a small DIP package:

**broken link removed**

Or you can buy it in a really small size so that you can fit a dozen of them on a penny and it'll be a space left:

**broken link removed**

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

For the same price, you can buy a PIC with built-in USB controller, built-in debugging capabilities, and better periphery in the size (and shape) of a small DIP package:

But you're not comparing 'like with like', the Nano is a complete development system on a tiny board, a bare chip isn't anywhere near as instantly usable.

 

[NorthGuy]

But you're not comparing 'like with like', the Nano is a complete development system on a tiny board, a bare chip isn't anywhere near as instantly usable.

Depends on the use.

If the use is to connect it to the USB cable, run a sketch and say "Whoa!", then Arduino beats everything - that's how they got popular.

If the use is to build a (possibly complicated) circuit where controller is just a part of it, then develop and debug the program in-situ (the way Mr Al uses the Nanos I suppose), then bare PIC is more useful, although it may require connecting few more wires.

If the use is to build 10 copies of the same device, Arduino is completely in the dust.

 

[MrAl]

I make my own it's not really hard but this is more for fun with me your right about price but maybe that's why atmel is going broke you can buy a whole board for under $4 dollars. Some even cheaper
Some ones not making money there when your splitting penny's you better hope shipping don't go up or your labor wants a raise

Hi,

But they must have been buying the chips for the boards from Atmel right? I dont know the true answer though to any problems Atmel may or may not have had.

I dont want to have to take the time to make boards like that anymore. Takes too long, doesnt work as well as it should sometimes. I have used proto boards in the past and hand wired the pins up to the parts, etc., but that takes a lot of time too.