Atmel and Arrow Electronics Select Winners for SMART Design Challenge

SAN JOSE, Calif., April 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ESC Silicon Valley 2010-- Atmel® Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML), a leader in microcontroller and touch solutions, and Arrow Electronics Inc., today announced the three winners for the Arrow and Atmel SMART Design Challenge using Atmel low-power 8-bit AVR® flash microcontrollers. A panel of seven judges selected the designs based on power consumption, technical skill, difficulty, bill of materials cost and working hardware.

Judges for this contest include Editorial Director of EE Times Group Richard Nass; Embedded Insights Editor Robert Cravotta; Atmel Vice President of Corporate Marketing Alf-Egil Bogen; Atmel Product Marketing Director AVR Ingar Fredriksen; Atmel Marketing Director of Microcontrollers Scott Avery; Arrow Electronics Vice President of Supplier Marketing and Asset David West; and Arrow Electronics Director of Supplier Marketing Tyler Moore. More information about the judging panel can be found at: http://www.arrownac.com/manufacturers/atmel/s/avr/judges.html.

The three SMART Design Challenge winners included:

• Charles Dixon of Saginaw, Texas, who won the Smart Fortwo grand prize. Dixon's design is an Automotive Safety Enhancement System intended to add or modify existing vehicular systems to help promote safe driving habits and prevent accidents. This design addresses and incorporates solutions for Lane Change Maneuvers (LCM), Situation Awareness (SA) and Aggressive Driving Practices (ADP).
• David Kennedy of Wellesley, Ontario, Canada, who won the second prize 2.13GHz 13-inch White Apple MacBook. Kennedy's design, coined 'SeeQLight', is a motion-activated LED lighting system that provides battery-operated, occupancy-triggered sequential path lighting for indoor and outdoor usage. The LED lighting modules sequentially turn-on along a path, then turn-off after a configurable time period – an energy saving feature for the environmentally conscious.
• Roger Case of Albuquerque, New Mexico, who won the third prize HP Mini 1000 Mi Netbook. Case's design, coined "WIMS," is a Wireless Intelligent Micro System that includes a micro-server and sensor module network for use in retail, home and office environments. The wireless system remotely monitors networked sensors for intrusion, presence and location, along with temperature, humidity, moisture/water, vibration/shock and particulates.

Atmel and Arrow congratulate the winners, participants and its panel of judges for this design contest.

See Video on Design Presentations at the ESC Silicon Valley 2010 Event

To see a video of the design presentations by the three finalists and grand prize selection, please visit our ESC Silicon Valley 2010 Microsite at: http://www.atmel.com/esc2010.

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 consumer, industrial, security, communications, computing and automotive markets.

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SOURCE Atmel Corporation