Despite the fact that I told him I preferred not to insert "middle men" in the discussion he apparently figured he should at least attempt it. In retrospect, I can see why.

We wanted an on-board bootloader, and abuilt-in SDRAM interface. We didn't care about their built-in DSP's. We were disappointed when their silicon didn't function at rated speed, but that wasn't a deal-breaker at that point. We needed more SDRAM than they put on their EVB, and when they sent the EVB that wouldn't even talk to the SDRAM, and had, with the addition of the ultra-expensive SRAM board, only half as large as the minimum we required, we were beginning to see what was going on. Then, it turned out they didn't have development support comparable with the competitors that had, by that time, six months later, come along, so we were "going soft" on their no-longer "super" chip. They'd charged us $2500 for software that EVERYONE competing with them gave away for free, and which was much less complete, much less functional, and much less useable, as it couldn't be used on their now much less-capable "development" platform.

Then they started to behave as though it was MY fault that their silicon didn't work.

I didn't lose my job over it, but they certainly lost about $10M$ per year in sales, that year, and probably more in the future, as I'll never even consider another ATMEL product.

RE