MicroChip anounces possible Atmel take over

Inventor · Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2008 4:38 am Post subject:

IMHO Microchip Rocks! If this move brings us more great Microchip products, then I'm happy to see it. Now, if they'd only make their software tools cross-platform I'd be really happy.

okvern · Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2008 10:31 am Post subject:

Fellow Builders,

I don't like mergers and acquisitions in the first place, and I'm hoping that this one doesn't happen. I happen to like both PIC and AVR, but I still don't like it--mostly because there is no reason for Microchip, having done the deal, to keep the Atmel product line alive. Of course, they'll make a lot of statements to the contrary, but we've heard that all before. I could be wrong, but this looks like a typical would-be monopolist's move: buy the competition and orphan their products.

I very much prefer Atmel's excellent and *free* C language development tools to Microchip's approach: $$$ for a C compiler for each chip family. (I'm sorry, life is simply too short to learn assembler--at least for a hobbyist.)

Just my opinion, of course! Smile

Thanks,

Ole

urbanscallywag · Joined: Nov 30, 2007 Posts: 317 Location: sometimes

Wow. I don't think this is good either. Competition is good (for us).

urbanscallywag · Joined: Nov 30, 2007 Posts: 317 Location: sometimes

Ole: I'm very much in the same position as you. I've used PIC 12F, Freescale MCS12, and Atmel AVR and very much prefer the AVR. While I do think assembly has its place, rapid development of simple and even complicated projects with C is priceless to me. For more timing critical applications assembly feels like a convoluted solution for something that should be done in hardware using VHDL in a CPLD or FPGA. Luckily I haven't had to work on a mass produced product where pennies matter and the cost of hand optimization outweighs throwing bigger CPUs at the problem.

I will be quite sad if AVRs are EOLed.

blue hell · Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2008 7:57 pm Post subject:

I split of the microchip compiler and eagle library and what not bit to a new thread : http://electro-music.com/forum/topic-29310.html

okvern · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 10:08 pm Post subject:

Fellow Builders,

I don't know if you've been by Atmel's site lately, but two letters from the Atmel board of directors rejecting Microchip's offer are posted. This doesn't necessarily mean it's over--Microchip could still attempt a hostile takeover--but it probably is the end of it.

I think this is good news for microcontroller consumers.

Thanks,

Ole

gubbeper · Joined: Oct 10, 2005 Posts: 50 Location: Sweden

Thanks for the update Ole. That's really good news!