Editing Atmel (section)

===1990s expansion===
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In 1991, Atmel expanded the Colorado facility after acquiring Concurrent Logic, a [[field-programmable gate array]] (FPGA) manufacturer. The company made its [[initial public offering]] (IPO) in 1991 which yielded more than US$65 million. 1994 saw Atmel enter the microprocessor market. The first Atmel flash memory microcontroller was based on the [[Intel MCS-51|Intel 8051]].<ref name="Flash-micro">[http://www.atmel.com/Images/doc2464.pdf atmel.com], "Atmel’s Self-Programming Flash Microcontrollers", Whitepaper.</ref>
The controller executed an instruction for every clock cycle, as opposed to the 12 cycles that legacy 8051 parts required.<ref name="atmel8051">[http://www.atmel.com/Images/doc4084.pdf atmel.com], "8051 Single Cycle Core Microcontrollers", Flyer.</ref>
In 1994, Atmel purchased the EEPROM assets of Seeq Technology ([[LSI Corporation]] acquired the rest of Seeq in 1999). In 1995,  Atmel was among the first companies to license the [[ARM architecture]], creating its AT91 family of devices, followed by the SAM family, and more recently a full selection of Cortex-based solutions, including ones based on the ultra-low-power [[ARM Cortex-M4]].<ref>
{{cite web
|title= Atmel Releases Updated Studio 6 IDE with Support for ARM Microcontrollers
|url=http://www.futurlec.com/News/Atmel/Studio6.shtml
|work=Futurlec
|access-date=October 3, 2013
}}
</ref> Atmel now has dozens of families of ARM-based devices. In 1995, Atmel acquired the pan-European chipmaker European Silicon Structures (ES2) and thus gained a fabrication facility in [[Rousset, Bouches-du-Rhône|Rousset]], France. Atmel built a new fab alongside the existing ES2 fab. This business unit was named Atmel-ES2. Atmel acquired Digital Research in Electronic Acoustics and Music (DREAM) in 1996.  Atmel formed a design team in [[Trondheim, Norway]] to develop the [[Atmel AVR]] line of [[RISC]] microcontrollers. This team combined technology of former students at the [[Norwegian University of Science and Technology]] with Atmel's expertise in flash memory. These 8-bit [[Modified Harvard architecture|Harvard architecture]] chips were first developed in 1996. The AVR chip is the basis of most [[Arduino]] [[Open-source model|open-source]] development boards. In 1998, Atmel purchased part of TEMIC from [[Vishay Intertechnology]], which provided them with a fab in Germany as well as part of MHS from Vishay that gave them a fab in [[Nantes]], France.<ref name="shack" >{{Cite web |title= Atmel Buys MHS, Again – The Twisted History of Atmel, Temic and MHS |date= February 5, 2011 |work= The CPU Shack museum |url= http://www.cpushack.com/2011/02/05/atmel-buys-mhs-again-the-twisted-history-of-atmel-temic-and-mhs/ |access-date= September 27, 2013 }}</ref>

In September 2000, Atmel acquired a fabrication plant in [[North Tyneside]], England, from [[Siemens]], via a £28 million grant from the UK government and paying Siemens around US$35 million.<ref>{{Cite news |title= Siemens finally gets shot of UK fab: Atmel and UK Govt come up with the readies |author= Andrew Thomas |work= The Register |date= September 18, 2000 |url= https://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/09/18/siemens_finally_gets_shot/ |access-date= September 27, 2013 }}</ref>