Beavers and Ducks at ESC last week

Up in Oregon, we have our rivalry between the OSU Beavers and the U of O Ducks. Everybody's got some kind of rivalry and most of the times you exhibit at a trade show, you'll end up with some competition around. This one takes it to the extreme though. Microchip and Atmel are of course as rival as rivals get. In the microcontroller community, the M vs A discussion is full of passion and absolutes. It's like AMD vs. Intel or Mac vs. PC.

At this year's ESC show last week, the two companies are right across the aisle from each other and seemed to be having some "fun" with it. Atmel has a poster quoting the Microchip CEO complimenting Atmel. Microchip has a big poster quoting a survey the shows declining favor for Atmel. Goofy.

Personally, I suspect that they both make great products, but it would help if there was actually some way to tell which is best for what without getting into a pseudo religious argument. I've asked that questions before of folks that use one or the other, but I haven't ever run across anyone that uses both and can give me a fair and un-biased overview of where the strengths and weaknesses are of either company's parts. Anyone that uses both want to chime in with some plain and dry toast, I mean plain and dry thoughts?

Duane Benson
Two chips, no salsa