Atmel Corporation

• 2325 Orchard Parkway • San Jose, CA 95131

TEL (408) 441-0311

• FAX (408) 487-2600 • Web Site: http://www.atmel.com

Innovative Techniques for Extremely Low Power Consumption

with 8-bit Microcontrollers

Arne Martin Holberg, AVR Project Manager

and

Asmund Saetre, AVR Marketing Manager

Summary

With the increasing use of microcontrollers in all sorts off applications, low power has become an

very important parameter when choosing microcontrollers. Today’s microcontroller designs are

often battery or signal wire powered applications replacing passive or mechanical components.

Common for them all is the requirement of very low power consumption but with enough power to

fill the specification of the product. This white paper will highlight some of the challenges of

modern microcontroller design and how the new picoPower™ techniques used in the Atmel

®

AVR