Microchip completes Atmel Aquisition with Controversy
Microchip has completed the merging of Atmel into their corporate structure, but some big problems have become apparent. These center around Atmel’s promises before the sale that Atmel severance packages to their employees would remain intact, when in reality this is not the case. An Atmel employee I know who shall remain anonymous fears the exodus of talent over this issue will decimate the core engineering groups inside a year. Given the usual 2-year roadmap of at least 4 die mask revisions for a part (and some parts have had *nine* revisions), this is a pretty big issue. EE Times article:
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