diff --git a/include/etl/debug_count.h b/include/etl/debug_count.h
index ee606528..1a486490 100644
--- a/include/etl/debug_count.h
+++ b/include/etl/debug_count.h
@@ -35,6 +35,7 @@ SOFTWARE.
 #include <assert.h>
 
 #include "platform.h"
+#include "atomic.h"
 
 ///\defgroup debug_count debug count
 ///\ingroup utilities
@@ -111,7 +112,11 @@ namespace etl
 
   private:
 
+#if ETL_HAS_ATOMIC
+    etl::atomic_int32_t count;
+#else
     int32_t count;
+#endif
   };
 
 }
diff --git a/support/Release notes.txt b/support/Release notes.txt
index 6c5c62ca..66de7620 100644
--- a/support/Release notes.txt	
+++ b/support/Release notes.txt	
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ etl::swap is now ETL_CONSTEXPR14.
 Changed ETL_ENDIANNESS_IS_CONSTEXPR to ETL_HAS_CONSTEXPR_ENDIANNESS.
 Changed ETL_CONSTEXPR17 to ETL_CONSTEXPR14 for reverse iterators
 Added template wrappers around memcpy, memmove, memcmp, memset& memchr.
+The counter in etl::debug_count is atomic, if available.
 
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 20.25.0