Отправлено ATmega161 29 ноября 2001 г. 13:04 В ответ на: ATmega161 info отправлено Yuriy 29 ноября 2001 г. 08:56

Author: Bеrd M. Pedersen
Date: Sep 6 01, 22:01

Hi,

I apologize if we have been a bit slow to respond here, but I wanted to look into a few facts first. This has become an interesting thread.

Starting with the original question regarding availability of the ATmega161: The ATmega161 is available in both PDIP and TQFP, and Atmel have the parts in stock. The question regarding the AT94 series development kit I cannot answer, as I am only working on AVR.

The problem that some of you have run into, is that many distributors do not want to carry stock of new parts before they have customers who want to buy the parts. And if you as customers do not want to place an order until the distributor has the parts in stock, we do not get the order and you do not get the parts. While we work with the distributors to solve this issue from our side, your option in the mean time is to try different distributors to find one that has a minimum order quantity that fits your needs. At least you should be able to get a sample request through, as these parts come directly from Atmel, not from the distributors’ stock.

Atmel do not have a web-store, but there are several distributors and catalog companies like Digikey who do. They will sell any quantity. If you want them to include new products that they currently do not supply, send them an email and ask them to do so. They usually listen a lot more to their customers (= you) than to us. Doing a quick web search I did not find any that currently carries the ATmega161, so I have asked some of our distributor contacts to see if they can change that.

Jesper Hansen wrote: ”Careful with the mega161, Don. What I've heard, it's going back to the drawing board due to loads of bugs.” This is partly true, partly not. It is true that it has bugs, but not that many. The complete list can be found in the errata sheet at http://www.atmel.com/atmel/acrobat/doc2473.pdf. There is no reason to be more careful about the ATmega161 than with any other device. We will continue to supply the ATmega161 as it is. For people who are looking for an 8515 with two UARTs and 16k flash the part should be a perfect match. There will also be a shrink version of the ATmega161 later on, just like the ATmega16 is the shrink version of the ATmega163.

I hope Sonny Andersons experience from Denmark is not the general picture in the field. He wrote: “…Last week I was talking to an AVR distributor in Denmark and asked him if there was any preferred AVR part they did sell in large numbers. …They have a hard time to get any AVR at ALL!” Certain devices in one flavor or another may be hard to get from time to time if demand for one particular device suddenly goes up. Then it may take a few weeks until we have caught up on that particular device. But we have to go 6 or 9 months back in time to find a situation where it was hard to get AVRs in general. As I mentioned above, we have everything in stock now, so I'll get in touch with our guys in Denmark to see if they have any issues we are not aware of. (For low quantity purchases in Scandinavia you can take a look at Elfa's web shop at http://www.elfa.se. I am not sure if they are shipping to the rest of the world.)

The semiconductor industry is cyclical, it always was and probably it always will be. Last year was one of the years when demand was much bigger than supply, and everybody had a hard time getting any kind of parts anywhere. Even passive components and relays were hard to get. For the AVR customers the situation was even worse, as a lot of customers went into high volume production with new designs at the same time, so demand increased even faster. We supplied 3 times as many AVRs in 2000 as we did in 1999, but this was not enough to satisfy the demand. A lot of customers got fewer parts than they wanted, and for some this caused serious problems. It also made some people believe that Atmel did not support the AVR product line, although the opposite was the case.

This year is one of the years when supply in general is bigger than demand, and most parts are available from stock. Atmel has increased its production capacity significantly during the last 6-12 months, and we have no problems keeping up with the increased demand now. We believe that we will see a lot of interest for the new megaAVR devices we are currently introducing, and this time we are prepared to take the volume increase.

And yes, we do see hobbyists and students as important for our future. A lot of us were (and still are) hobbyists ourselves, and for many that is the main reason why we are engineers today. Making high quality tools like STK500, ICE200 and JTAGICE available at a cost most hobbyists can afford is one of the things we have done. Paying attention to sites like this one and the mailing lists is another. (Yes, we listen, even though we usually do not have the time to reply.) And if we can find a way to make it easier for you to get hold of parts, I think we have come a long way.

Regards,

Bеrd M. Pedersen

Atmel AVR Tech Support

Re: Larger 8515/pin-compatable AVR?

Author: M.Rothe (Michael Rothe)
Date: Oct 29 01, 12:00

Yes, there is the ATmega161. They really exist. Finally.
Available packages: DIL40 and TQFP44. No PLCC44.

Author: Michael Baeuerle
Date: Oct 29 01, 12:08

That's right,
in Germany you get the mega161 within a few days.
We are using the TQFP package.