Alf-Egil Bogen, v-p of corporate marketing at Atmel talks to EW about the 32-bit microcontroller market and the growing importance of touch technology in many applications
Electronics Weekly: How do you see the split of 8-, 16- and 32-bit business developing in the next 5 years?
Alf-Egil Bogen: The 8-bit microcontroller (MCU) market is still a very strong market that we will continue to support. During the last couple of years, our company has focused on 32-bit microcontrollers – a market that puts immense pressure on the 16-bit MCU market, and also a tad bit on the 8-bit market.
There are no real benefits with a 16-bit MCU because an 8-bit MCU is still easier to use and offers less power consumption than 32-bit MCUs.
Lower power consumption has become an important factor in all MCUs.
EW: You’ve made recent acquisitions in both touch technology and wireless IP. What are your expectations for these technologies?
Alf-Egil Bogen: Combined with our AVR technologies, we have utilised technologies from our wireless IP acquisitions to develop a range of radio solutions including Atmel’s ATmega128RFA1.
EW: Within the present economic climate, where do you see growth opportunities?
Alf-Egil Bogen: We see tremendous growth opportunities in the touch business – it’s a compelling growth driver, driven by capacitive touch sensing. We have a focus on touch screens, buttons, sliders and wheels which are driven by handsets and other applications. Customers choose us because our touch products are powerful, robust, easy to use, low-power and are fully integrated.
We also see growth opportunities in our core microcontroller (MCU) business, especially in our proprietary AVR flash-based MCUs. We’ve exited 14 non-core businesses and are very busy with new product introductions, with an increased focus on high-growth, high-margin microcontroller markets. We continue to invest in the AVR product line and expect strong growth in the 32-bit MCU products.
Since the market for touch sensing solutions is exploding as more customers demand this technology in their mobile phones, personal electronics, automobile and home appliances, we took this opportunity to make strategic acquisitions including Quantum Research Group, the world’s leading supplier of robust, reliable, capacitive touch controls to position us as a global leader in touch technology. Their products also further strengthen our MCU product portfolio since a microcontroller is required to drive touch technology.
EW: How will the microcontroller business change as a result of the present downturn?
Alf-Egil Bogen: Although the microcontroller business suffered overall during the downturn, we saw the AVR 32 business had a significantly good year in 2009. We expect the overall MCU business to make a come-back in 2010.