 microchip booth here at the Embedded World Nuremberg 2017. And who are you? Hi, I'm Lucha de Asia. I'm the business development manager for Europe for microchip technology. So microchip is a pretty big booth here. In the previous year, you acquired Atmel, right? Yes, we did. So that's a lot of technologies you integrated? Sure. Actually, well, in the last three years, we did seven acquisitions. Atmel is just the biggest one. So you can see there's a lot of new products here at microchip, of course. And so much more than just a pick which is the famous product of microchip. And the one most of your readers and listeners will be familiar with. But now you also have ABR from Atmel and also have arms solutions, right? Yes. Atmel brought a lot of new solutions, a lot of new IP, into the company. Also, manufacturing processes, factories, and very good technology. Definitely, we should talk about the fact that we have now, together, the PIC and the ABR architectures. I think those are the two most beloved architectures out there in the 8-bit world. And also, we have a lot of new armchips, definitely, with the acquisition. We already had all the licenses before and some products there, but definitely a big boost to the 32-bit product line. So for example, you have right here, you have a Cortex-A. Yeah, I mean, if you want to look at MPUs, we have here Darren Nguyen. And he can tell you more, for example, of our MPU solutions using the A5 core. Hi, so my name is Darren Nguyen. I'm an apps engineer based in the UK. Been working with Microchip for about 14 years now. What we've got here is some of our SAM-A5-D2 processes, which is... So it's right here. Yeah, world-class. World-class. This is our Cortex-A5. World-class. With Trustzone implemented. So I can show you that in a second. So we've been involved, obviously, via ABML and acquisition of ABML. We've been involved with the Armcourse since around 2002, so... Oh, there it is. 2002. Exactly. So we've got a long history there. Microchip and Microchip and ABML actively involved in the development of the Linux kernel on the SAM-A5 parts and on the A5 cores. We contribute back to the main line, and make a policy of doing that. We have no strange vendor trees for our Linux solution. So just an example here that one of the nice things about the A5 is on these particular parts is the level of integration on here. We have built-in LCD controllers. We have graphics acceleration. We have class D audio and the fires built into the parts. So providing significant levels of integration for the customer. And here we're running graphic solutions with Qt and Frank. And here it's showing some trust zone demonstration right here. What is the demo here? So the particular demo we've got here is in conjunction with a third party called Secatar Labs. They're one of our great third parties that we use. And this is just an example of their product called Core T, which provides a secure and trusted execution environment. You can see here one of the classic things that probably people are aware of with Linux is you can try and do a code injection into the kernel while we've got intrusion countermeasures and integrity check monitors in the part. So we can try and inject some code into the Linux kernel by this little application. And there we go. We've detected it. You can see it on the left-hand side and on the right-hand side. The trusted execution environment detects the fault and removes the Linux kernel. We don't have the trusted execution environment, but it's called Secatar Core T. It's not the open source one, right? No, this is a payable product, but then what is security worth to you? How much is it worth to your customers? And you can see here some of our third parties that have great products, including banking solutions using the SAM A5D2. So it's out there in many, many things. Indeed. For security. And this is just on the Cortex-A part coming in the future. There certainly will be some parts coming along in the future. All right. Great. Thanks a lot. And if we go around, there's even more microcontrollers around here. I'm just going to go over here. Check out. Thanks. So what are you showing around here? Yes. So what you see here is a little demonstration. We try to show one of the technologies that we have included in our new ARM devices in some of our Cortex-M0 parts, but also in the AVRs and in the PIC microcontrollers. This technology is called core-independent or event system basically. And what we show here is a bit expanded what would be inside the microcontroller. You'll see some digital and some analog input peripherals, some programmable logic inside the chip and also some output peripherals and some output kind of devices. And what you see here is the wiring basically that you would need to perform, you would need to connect properly to get an application going. And what we see is basically a way to visualize what the core-independent peripheral concept is with these wires. Actually these are connections established inside the micro. So we connect the inputs, the outputs and the logic directly peripheral to peripheral without intervention from the microcontroller. So this is hardware but it's configured in live, in runtime. So every one of these wires is a bit that actually is set in a configuration register and all this actually is inside a micro and you can find it in our Cortex-M0s in our SAM devices and you will find it inside our AVRs and our PIC microcontrollers. If I go around here, let me try to jump in there. Nevertheless, this is a little bit of a complete ecosystem if you want. So a lot of very simple evaluation boards there, a low-cost evaluation board very accessible to all and they range from 8-bit micros all the way to AVR, 8-bit micros all the way to SAM devices again. So you see there at SAM D21, for example, which is a Cortex-M0 5-volt device with the core independent peripherals. Those little boards that you see, those are the click boards from Koleitronica, which is a partner with us on this. There are 280 of those little sensors and actuator boards and you can plug them directly into all of our demos. So you can easily plug them in. So here you see them connected to a SAM D21, for example. You see two of them connected here and it's very easy to build a prototype, a quick demonstration in a matter of minutes you can have a demo for your boss and show him, hey, this is how I can implement something that connects via, say, GSM. This sensor does some IoT-ish kind of performance. So you did standard kind of connectors. Yes, the standard connector was defined by microelectronica. It's called the microbus and we added this connector to all our demo boards, all of them basically from 8-bit to 32 Cortex AVR and PIC. Now, if you want to follow me, I can show you also some new devices. We continue our commitment to 8-bit. There is still an enormous amount of, enormous volume of 8-bit product being used and consumed in industry nowadays. So we keep innovating there and we have a commitment also to continue both lines of 8-bits, PICs and AVR at the same time. So here at the show, we're showing, again, as we did in November, we did at Electronica and now here in the embedded world, we're showing side-by-side new parts. This is a brand new AVR called the Tiny 1617 and this one is basically an XMega generation AVR squeezed into a tiny package and format. So an XMega set of features, event system, all the cool new features of the XMega really squeezed into one tiny device. Well, it is, of course, using the latest process but it is still a 5-volt capable and it is still backward compatible with the previous generations of Tiny's and XMega's. You also see on the next side, on the other side of the board, you see two new devices, a new PIC 18 and a new PIC 16. This is the first PIC 18 to actually include DMA and back-to-the-interact. And this is a new entry-level family of PIC 16s with all of the core independent peripherals at once but offered... Demo, or you can type in on the... Yes, it's okay if they sign up, you can get it. So we are actually giving away this little... There's not a bucket, there's a programmer and there's a... So these boards, these are the Express series and it's a very interesting little concept. It's a very nice hobby prototyping board. It could be handy also for, you know, some wearable applications, for example. And what it comes with is a little loader, we call it an MSD loader or Express loader. As soon as you connect this board to your PC, it behaves as a hard drive. And then you can drag and drop files on it and it will program it immediately. And as soon as it's finished programming the device, it actually behaves as a virtual serial port. Let's see. So this is using a PIC or the AVR? This one is using a PIC and it is the lowest cost, the easiest entry level device you can find for prototyping quickly. So how do people choose PIC AVR or ARM? I would say that's the beauty of it. I mean, it's up to them. It becomes a question of personal preferences, past experience, what you did in school sometimes, you know, prepares you to prefer one rather than the other. And honestly, the split out there is 50-50 from what we see between AVRs and PICs. It literally comes down to that. Usually the 8 bits are cheaper than the 32-bit stuff? Well, nowadays some of the Cortex M0s are darn cheap. So, yeah, it becomes really a matter of what you need to do, what kind of peripherals you need, what is the application really requiring. And then you got a lot of choice out there. And between PICs AVRs and Cortex devices here, we have just an enormous choice. We have on the website... Just to have a little bit of an idea. What kind of boost do you have around here? So this is the wireless section, which is of course enormous. We have actually two of the stations dedicated to connectivity. This is the wireless connectivity. What you see here is Lora. This is a Lora gateway. This also? This is a Lora port. Well, I considered using... So it's a very small evaluation board. And you can see the format is Arduino compatible. Which is actually not available. It's the easiest way to look at this one. Long-range radios. Lora gives you enormous distances. And this is thanks to this particular radio technology that is using spread spectrum very effectively to get very low power and enormous distances. Very different technologies, but somewhat in the same space and for the same type of applications. Free mix of 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, Cortex MIPS, all of it. We cover it all. And there is a bunch of... Again, here you see an AVR running. Here you see a... This side a PIC32. So this is a MIPS side-by-side. This is another MIPS machine. This is a SAM W25. So integration of a Cortex core and the radio on the same chip. You see Bluetooth. Of course Bluetooth is very, very hot. And if you go around... The other side is often... Okay, this is wired connectivity. So this is power over internet solutions. Some of it is actually done implementing. This is done implemented on an 8-bit core. 8-bit PIC core. And here you have all our USB and internet connectivity solutions. And of course, between the acquisitions of SMSC and Minecraft, our portfolio here just exploded. At the show here we're showing actually our new gigabit solutions and even a new USB-C 3.1 bridge to gigabit. Are you part of some of the leaders in the market for that kind of stuff? Absolutely, absolutely. I believe they're saying that we have already now shipped something like 600 million units of... Just one part. Of just an internet... Max and 5, basically. So just microchip is for sure shipping billions of chips out there. Oh yes. It's been doing for decades. Well, our current run rates tell us that just 8-bit alone we're shipping more than a billion units per year. And this was before the acquisition of the ADR. And we're here at the embedded world 2017. What's going to happen in the future? Is just going to be more and more stuff happening? Oh yes. Oh you bet. I mean, of course as you see the density of the visitors around our booths you will see that the wireless obviously is the hottest one. And as you move there toward the microcontrollers... Automotive also... In the automotive you see the density just keeps increasing. We had an incredibly busy first day and this second day already is looking pretty. So you have R&D around the world? We do, yeah. Especially with the acquisitions now even more? Yeah, we have a lot of teams especially here in Europe I would say. New teams of course that we got from the micro, from the SMSC, from the Atmel acquisitions. But we keep developing for example all the manufacturing of the silicon for microchip happens actually in the United States in two very large factories in Oregon and in Colorado. Have you been in those? Yes. Is it very impressive? Oh, you have to go there. Is it bigger than the hall here? Oh yes. So it's big and you have to be in a clean bunny suit or not? Oh yes, yes. Actually, well if you come to our Masters Conference which happens every August in Chandler you get the bunny suit visit to one of our factories. The Tempe factory is open for visitors. That would be cool. And the quantities being fabbed out is just increasing all the time and the complexity and the features and new cores being considered and worked on and stuff. Yeah, you can think of it in this terms basically. On a daily basis we are manufacturing, packaging and testing 100% more than 5 million units just of 8-bit microcontrollers. 5 millions a day. 100% tested out of our factory and being shipped out there to the world. I guess you don't do it by hand, right? No, no. Because it's a machine. Yes. And R&D investments and all these things Atma was doing for example is increasing now because of microcontrollers. So they can speed up the innovation, right? Yes, so we have for example a brand new innovation team basically that was the development team in Norway, in Trondheim which is where the AVR was born for example. That team is amazing and it's a very large team of very, very technical, very expert developers. You also did the SAMD 21 and all that stuff, right? We have a location for that in France and in Germany we have more locations with R&D and then we have of course in India, we have locations in the Far East of course that are pretty large. So Philippines, Malaysia and so on. So that's, there's a lowest power Bluetooth in the world, lowest power Wi-Fi in the world. Most performance protects M7 and all these things aren't for killer right now. A5 which is one of the most integrated A5s you can buy. As you've seen there with the graphic acceleration with class D amplifier built in. So, yeah. More, more, more, for less more choice for your readers, for your viewers.