Atmel Corporation, a global leader in microcontroller (MCU) and touch technology solutions, has launched the industry's first family of high-precision digital temperature sensors with the widest Vcc range from 1.7V to 5.5V. The new family delivers higher temperature accuracy and faster I2C bus communication speeds, and are available with integrated nonvolatile registers and serial EEPROM memory making them ideal for consumer, industrial, computer, and medical applications.

With the widest Vcc range in the industry, the new temperature sensor family allows customers to purchase one device to cover all their Vcc requirements in a variety of applications. Currently, digital temperature sensors on the market are available with a very limited Vcc range requiring customers to purchase multiple temperature sensors in their overall bill of materials (BOM) and utilizing multiple devices to cover the different voltage ranges across various applications. Atmel's new family of digital temperature sensors allows customers to select just one device to cover all Vcc requirements in various applications, reducing their overall BOM. The new family also delivers a higher accuracy rate at +/-0.5°C accuracy (typical) across the 0°C to +85°C temperature range across the entire wide voltage range (1.7V to 5.5V). The low voltage operation of the devices also reduce the overall power consumption in applications such as portable handheld consumer devices, enabling longer battery life.

"Developers for consumer, industrial, computer, medical applications are constantly looking for ways to reduce their overall bill of materials while increasing their system reliability and lowering their power consumption," said Bryce Morgan, strategic marketing manager, Atmel Corporation. "With Atmel's new family of temperature sensors, developers are guaranteed a wide Vcc range along with higher temperature accuracy to satisfy a variety of applications across all market segments. Even more, the new family enables these developers to lower their overall system BOM, while increasing system reliability and lowering the overall power by selecting just one device in this new temp sensor family."

The new family also delivers a faster I2C bus communication with speeds of up to 1MHz, increasing the data throughput for both temperature sensor operations and for devices with integrated Serial EEPROM.

The new temperature sensor family includes six high-precision, digital temperature sensors based on the industry-standard LM75 functionality offered by a number of vendors. All the devices accurately measure and monitor temperature to address the thermal monitoring requirements for a wide variety of applications and are highly configurable.

The new Atmel temperature sensor family includes devices that include serial EEPROM memory from 2K-, 4K- or 8K-bits to store system parameters and user preference data. The base part numbers include AT30TSE752A, AT30TSE754A or AT30TSE758A. The user can also access the EEPROM, which is fully functional and drop-in compatible with industry-standard I2C serial EEPROMs. This integration reduces overall system cost by replacing the stand-alone serial EEPROM, saving the EEPROM cost and other associated costs of the circuit board components. Additionally, the inclusion of nonvolatile registers to permanently store device configuration settings offers system designers superior flexibility. The integrated nonvolatile register feature allows user-configured settings to be retained across power cycles to simplify the system design, reduce processor start-up code, improve reliability, and ensure proper operation.

Atmel Corporation 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.