HEILBRONN, Germany /PRNewswire/ -- Atmel Corp., a leader in microcontroller and touch solutions, announced the availability of two stand-alone local interconnect network (LIN) transceiver ICs in DFN packages. Compared with standard SO8 packages at 5 mm by 6.5 mm, the DFN14 package for the ATA6670 measures at 3 mm by 4.5 mm, and the DFN8 package for the ATA6663 measures at 3 mm by 3 mm, saving about 75% of the overall PCB area. Space and cost savings are critical for LIN bus networking applications such as automotive body electronic systems, including door modules, seat control, intelligent sensors, or powertrain applications. Since both DFN packages are pin-compatible, customers can use either the single- or dual-LIN transceiver on the same PCB design without any changes.
Atmel is the "industry's first company to provide LIN DFN packages with wettable flanks that make solder joints visible." This feature enables the use of automated optical inspection tools during final quality tests at the system manufacturers' production line, which eliminates the need for X-ray inspections to therefore avoid cost-intensive tool investments. In addition, the wettable flanks enable improved soldering performance for temperature cycling.
Similar to all Atmel LIN family members, the new LIN devices are manufactured using Atmel's high-voltage BCD-on-SOI process, also known as SMART-I.S. technology, which is optimized for operations up to 40 V for applications in harsh automotive environments. The results of manufacturing on the SMART-I.S. technology is industry-leading EMC robustness (EMC test and conformance test LIN2.1, Europe, and SAE J2602-2, US), and excellent ESD protection (exceeding 6 kV).
Availability and Pricing
Samples of the ATA6670 and the ATA6663 are available now. Pricing starts at $0.45 (ATA6663) and $0.90 (ATA6670) for 10,000-piece quantities. To simplify and speed-up design-ins, evaluation kits are available for both devices starting at $50.00.
About Atmel
Atmel Corp. is a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of microcontrollers, capacitive touch solutions, advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory and radio frequency components. Leveraging one of the industry's broadest intellectual property technology portfolios, Atmel is able to provide the electronics industry with complete system solutions focused on industrial, consumer, communications, computing, and automotive markets.
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