I just found out that Atmel is being bought.

Papabravo

Joined Feb 24, 2006
21,158
Being bought generally has nothing to do with doing alright or not. It has to do with the interests of management and shareholders. If the value of your shares make them a buying opportunity and somebody wants to eliminate you as a competitor they have the opportunity. Atmel stock is trading at a 25% discount to it's price in 2001, which for a decade and a half is pretty awful.
 

DickCappels

Joined Aug 21, 2008
10,153
There is a lot of consolidation going on in the semiconductor industry lately. This one hit home. Well, I have a box of PIC chips -the architecture is a lot like the PDP-8. Not great, but useful for a lot of things.
 

JoeJester

Joined Apr 26, 2005
4,390
@DickCappels

do you mean THIS PDP-8 ....

PDP8.jpg

I haven't worked with that since 1980.

Mod edit: reduced image filesize.
Image source: Wikipedia Commons
 
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Thread Starter

shteii01

Joined Feb 19, 2010
4,644
Should it come to pass that Atmel is dissolved does that mean 'Microchip' products will be summoned to staff that uC "west 42'nd street" known as Arduino?! -- Perish the thought!!!:eek::eek::eek:

Tremulously
HP:D
I just checked Dialog Semiconductor PLC website, they have a bunch of peripherals, no uC. So I don't see Dialog stopping making AVR uC that Atmel is making.
 

dannyf

Joined Sep 13, 2015
2,197
I thought Atmel was doing alright.
The answer depends on your perspective and time horizon.

Atmel is certainly doing better than its peers, particularly Microchip, in the 8-bit arena.

However, that arena is under siege and shrinking fast in the foreseeable future. Microchip is done in that regard: for its lack of a cohesive roadmap to take its users to the 16/32-bit world.

There, Atmel has done a far better job - their 32-bit offerings are at least unique, but lack of lower-end 32-bit offerings should be a concern - if I were them, I would focus on CM0 and CM0+ offerings that tightly integrate their peripherals (like their touch products).

The buyer is unlikely to pay much for the existing 8-bit offerings. But it provides the cash flow to support implementation of new strategies.
 

Thread Starter

shteii01

Joined Feb 19, 2010
4,644
Yeah, just saw that.
Ironically, was listening to AMP Hour podcast, Dave Jones of EEVBlog is one of the anchors, and they were talking about Microchip buying ATmel, but that podcast is from a couple of weeks ago, maybe even longer then that, like a month ago.
Yep, The Amp Hour #278 from December 17, 2015.
 
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