News and press releases

Bluegiga News - September 26th 2001

Atmel and Bluegiga Technologies Bring Wireless Connectivity Solution to OEMs

SAN JOSE, CA, US and ESPOO, Finland
Atmel� Corporation (NASDAQ:ATML), an Associate Bluetooth� member and worldwide leader in the design, manufacturing and marketing of advanced semiconductor ICs, and Bluegiga Technologies, a leading provider of wireless connectivity solutions, announced today they have teamed together to offer a complete wireless platform using Atmel's family of Bluetooth� baseband and System-on-Chip (SOC) technologies. Bluegiga's solutions, incorporating Atmel's latest baseband controllers (AT76C552, 553 and 554), provides OEMs with a fast and complete, pre-qualified building block for adding intelligence and pervasive wireless connectivity to embedded systems and equipment.

Atmel's baseband controllers, supporting PCMCIA, USB and UART interfaces, are V1.1 certified and support a full range of Bluetooth capabilities, including full piconet capabilities (1 master, 7 slaves), scatternet, master/slave switch, power save modes and data rates above 700K bits. Voice applications are also being supported through an external voice codec.

Bluegiga's Wireless Remote Access Platform (WRAP) can intelligently and independently run all needed protocols and application software, and it is designed to significantly lower the investment and "time-to-market" for OEMs in developing new wireless applications or adding wireless connectivity into existing devices. Bluegiga's WRAP family of products include the WRAP 2100 MicroServers and WRAP 3000 Industrial Access Server, working together to enable 3 levels of machine interaction:

Man-to-Machine: replacing traditional user interfaces with Bluetooth enabled PDAs, mobile phones or laptop computers with graphical interfaces such as HTTP, utilizing JAVA.

Machine-to-Machine: replacing expensive cables between devices and adding more intelligence into each node.

Machine-to-Networks: wireless communications between industrial devices and existing backbone systems such as databases, ERP and industrial control systems.

WRAP also integrates several existing technologies with Bluetooth including Ethernet, TCP/IP and Linux. The WRAP MicroServer facilitates the creation of embedded wireless applications in modern development environments by providing developers with full hardware/software platform and tools including AnsiC, Java, Linux, TCP/IP Sockets and Bluetooth APIs.

"Atmel is excited to work closely with Bluegiga. Being able to provide complete turn-key solutions from hardware to complete user software is key to successfully launching Bluetooth enabled products" stated Richard Bisset, Director, Product Marketing for Atmel Multimedia and Communications. "Working with Bluegiga and their Wireless Remote Access Platform allows customers to quickly develop Bluetooth solutions within a short time frame. This allows customers to get to the market quicker and with a lower cost of development, further states Richard Bisset.

"With this partnership, we will provide customers with a compelling turn-key solution whose sole aim is to save time and money through accessing devices anywhere, anytime and in real-time. Using Atmel's leading-edge family of Bluetooth baseband and CPU ICs, we are marrying the Bluetooth short-range wireless technology with existing and proven networking technologies such as Ethernet in a scaleable Machine-to-Machine (M2M) concept. This enables OEMs to embed multi-channel connectivity into devices for remote diagnostics and cable replacement in the short, local and global range", says Hans Holmberg, Marketing Director for Bluegiga Technologies.

The two companies have already partnered to secure OEM design wins and will work together in the future on other major Bluetooth customer opportunities. The solution will be showcased at the Nordic Bluetooth 2001 Congress, Stockholm Arlanda between 3 - 5 October at the Bluegiga booth.

About Atmel
Founded in 1984, Atmel Corporation is headquartered in San Jose, California with manufacturing facilities in North America and Europe. Atmel designs, manufactures and markets worldwide, advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory and RF semiconductors. Atmel is also a leading provider of system-level integration semiconductor solutions using CMOS, BiCMOS, bipolar SiGe, and high-voltage BCDMOS process technologies.

About Bluegiga
Bluegiga Technologies is an innovative wireless technology company based in Espoo & Turku, Finland and Stockholm, Sweden who develops and markets integrated product solutions and design services tailored to industrial customers' needs. Our mission is to help the OEMs in creating wireless remote connectivity and pervasive access to electronic devices and systems in order to realise substantial cost savings and productivity improvements.

More information about Bluegiga can be found at or send an e-mail to [email protected]

Requests may be sent via e-mail to [email protected] or by visiting Atmel's website at www.atmel.com. � Atmel Corporation 2001. All rights reserved. Atmel, the Atmel logo and combinations thereof are registered trademarks and others contained herein, are trademarks of Atmel Corporation. Terms and product names in this document may be the trademarks of others. Bluetooth and the Bluetooth logos are trademarks owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc., U.S.A. and licensed to Atmel Corporation.

Press Contacts:
Atmel
Clive Over, Director of Public Relations, [email protected] Tel: 1- (408) 451-2855
Richard Bisset, Product Marketing Director, [email protected] Tel: 1- (919) 462-6540

Bluegiga
Hans Holmberg, Marketing Director, [email protected] Tel: +46 733 32 71 72
Jarkko Jukarainen, Managing Director, [email protected] Tel: +358 40 550 2264