The AVR RISC microcontroller family is made by Atmel Corp. It uses a RISC core running single cycle instructions, and a well defined I/O structure that limits need for external components. Some features in AVR devices: internal oscillators, timers, UART, SPI, pull-up resistors, pulse width modulation, ADC, analog comparator, watch-dog timers. The architecture was created at the Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTH), by two students: Alf-Egil Bogen, Vegard Wollan, and developed further at Atmel Norway AS, a subsidiary founded by them. The chip is supported by Atmel, and by a vibrant, large, and growing user community, which provides free projects, software, tutorials, and much other assistance.
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