Atmel acquires DREAM; entree to sound synthesis

Electronic News, May 13, 1996 by Peter Brown

San Jose, Calif.--Jumping feet-first into sound synthesis technology, Atmel, based here, last week acquired Digital Research in Electronic Acoustics and Music (DREAM), a French audio chip company located in Semur-en-Auxois near Dijon.

Atmel says the 100 percent acquisition of DREAM will leverage Atmel's presence in the audio market as well as promote the growth of DREAM's products. According to Atmel, DREAM, as a relatively small company, did not have the capability to sell its products on a mass scale.

"The expertise and experience of the DREAM staff, together with Atmel's integrated circuit development, production and marketing capabilities, place us in a strong position to enhance our penetration of our target markets," said Christian Deforeit, CEO of DREAM.

Mr. Deforeit, along with the 20 to 25 other employees of DREAM, will continue their prior duties, with the Atmel sales force promoting and marketing DREAM products. There will also be no executive changes, he noted.

"With the addition of this family of digital sound processors, Atmel will enter the audio marketplace for the booming multimedia industry," said George Perlegos, Atmel's president and CEO. Atmel would not discuss financial terms of the acquisition.

DREAM's primary product is a sound chip based on wave technology. However, the company also dips into the multimedia, karaoke and musical instrument markets. DREAM was founded by Mr. Deforeit and holds a number of patents in the sound synthesis field. The company has been a client and partner of Atmel European Silicon Structures (ES2), a subsidiary of Atmel, since its creation. In 1995, DREAM's sales were at $10 million.

In a related move, Atmel has introduced a flash-based programmable logic device (PLD) in an attempt to broaden its low-density portfolio.

The ATF16V8C-5 is the first chip in a planned series of simple programmable logic devices (SPLD) by Atmel. The new chip features a 5.0 nanosecond pin-to-pin maximum delay, 250 gates and a power requirement of 90 milliamps. Atmel claims the new chip will be designed for high-speed computing and for data and telecommunications applications. The remainder of the chips, Atmel says, will be introduced sometime later this year.

The ATF16V8C-5 is processed with electrically erasable programmable read-only (EEPROM) flash memory. Atmel says this will include a guarantee of 20-year data retention. The ATF16V8C-5 is available now, and prices in a PLCC package start at $7.14 in quantities of 100 units.

"The addition of the ATF16V8C-5 to Atmel's low-density logic line broadens our participation in this market sector and further enforces Atmel's plan to expand its share of the programmable logic device market," said Jim Fahey, Atmel director of marketing for programmable logic.