Jointly developed by Atmel and Arduino, Arduino introduces Arduino Zero; a 32-bit evolution, powering the next generation of IoT development

SOMERVILLE, Mass. and SAN JOSE, Calif., May 15, 2014 -- Arduino LLC, the leading open-source hardware platform in the maker and education community and Atmel Corporation (NASDAQ: ATML), a global leader in microcontroller (MCU) and touch solutions, today announced the latest development board, Arduino Zero.

Arduino Zero is a simple, elegant and powerful 32-bit extension of the platform established by Arduino UNO. The Zero board aims to provide creative individuals with the potential to realize truly innovative ideas for smart IoT devices, wearable technology, high-tech automation, robotics and projects not yet imagined. The board is powered by Atmel's SAMD21 MCU, which features a 32-bit ARM Cortex® M0+ core.

"The Zero board expands the Arduino family by providing increased performance to fuel the creativity of the maker community," said Massimo Banzi, Arduino co-founder and CEO. "The flexible feature set enables endless project opportunities for devices and acts as a great educational tool for learning about 32-bit application development."

"Leveraging more than 15 years of experience since the inception of AVR, simplicity and ease-of-use have been at the core of Atmel's technology," said Reza Kazerounian, senior vice president and general manager, microcontroller business unit at Atmel. "Atmel is pleased to see the continued growth of the global maker community stemming from the increasing access and availability to open source platforms such as Arduino. We enable makers, but the power lies within the makers themselves."

The first prototypes of Arduino Zero will be on display at Maker Faire Bay Area 2014 in San Mateo on May 17 and 18 at the following booths:

*Arduino Booth: #204
*Atmel Booth: #205
*ARM Booth: #405

Arduino Zero
The Arduino Zero board features the Atmel SAMD21 Microcontroller, with 256kb of flash and 32kb SRAM in a TQFP package. Compatible with 3.3V Shield that conform to the Arduino R3 Layout, development with the Arduino Zero using the Arduino programming language is fully supported through a custom developed software library, integrated in the Arduino development environment.

The Arduino Zero board also features flexible peripherals and Atmel's Embedded Debugger (EDBG), which provides a full debug interface on the SAMD21 without the need for additional hardware, significantly increasing the ease-of-use for software debugging. EDBG also supports a virtual COM port that can be used for device programming and traditional Arduino boot loader functionality.

For more information on the Zero board, please visit Arduino's website. For more information on Atmel's AVR and MCU ARM-based solutions, please visit the product page and datasheet.

About Arduino
Arduino, the first widespread Open Source Hardware platform, was launched in 2005 to simplify the process of electronic prototyping. It enables everyday people with little or no technical background to build interactive products. The Arduino ecosystem is a combination of three different elements, including a small electronic board that makes it easy and affordable to learn to program a microcontroller, a free software application used to program the board, and a vibrant community. Every day on the www.arduino.cc website thousands of people connect with other users, ask for help, engage and contribute to the project.

About Atmel Corporation
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 industrial, consumer, communications, computing and automotive markets.