Digi-Key Corporation and Measurement Specialties Announce Global Distribution Agreement

Electronic components distributor Digi-Key Corporation, recognized by design engineers as having the industry’s broadest selection of electronic components available for immediate shipment, and Measurement Specialties, Inc., a global designer of sensors and sensor-based systems, announced today that the companies have entered into an agreement for the worldwide distribution of Measurement Specialties products.

Measurement Specialties products stocked by Digi-Key include its force, piezo, position, pressure, and vibration sensors. Slated to be featured in future print and online catalogs, these products are now available on Digi-Key’s global websites.

Mark Larson, Digi-Key president and COO, said, “With certainty that our customers will find these quality products to be of significant interest, we are very pleased to partner with Measurement Specialties and add this company to our lineup of valued manufacturers.”

Glen MacGibbon, Measurement Specialties Group vice president, commented, “We have been working with Digi-Key for the past several years on our core pressure products and have been extremely impressed with its ‘reach’ to design engineers. This agreement will allow us to share some of our newer sensor products, which we are very excited about, with this important customer base.”

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Polamco and PEI-Genesis sign worldwide distribution agreement

International assembling distributor PEI-Genesis has signed a worldwide franchise agreement with Polamco, the UK-based manufacturer of connector backshells and accessories.

PEI-Genesis specialises in the rapid assembly of multi-pin connectors, and this new franchise is an ideal complement to the company’s existing product portfolio, enabling customers to source both connectors and accessories from a single point of contact.

Primarily targeting the industrial, transportation, aerospace and military sectors, PEI-Genesis will be offering Polamco’s comprehensive range of circular and rectangular backshells, as well as their popular accessories such as protection caps and dummy receptacles.

“In addition to their wide range of standard components, Polamco’s great strength is their ability to respond quickly and efficiently to customers’ individual backshell requirements,” commented David Jones, European General Manager for PEI-Genesis.

“They are able to provide design drawings in a matter of hours and, with their extensive CNC manufacturing facilities, can rapidly turn these design concepts into high-quality finished products. We are very pleased that this exceptional service is now available to all of our customers through the integrated support of the two companies’ engineering teams.”

Polamco’s Managing Director, Andrew Polson, was equally enthusiastic about the new agreement: “PEI-Genesis is a rapidly expanding company with a first-class connector assembly facility at Southampton. We are delighted to be working with them and are excited about being able to offer our products and design service within the PEI-Genesis customer base, both in Europe and in the USA.

“Both Polamco and PEI-Genesis are driven by a desire to achieve the highest levels of quality and customer service, and I believe that this shared philosophy will be the foundation of a very successful partnership.”

For further information, visit www.peigenesis.co.uk and www.polamco.com.

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RS Components to host Microchip workshop: USB from Scratch

RS Components is set to host a workshop in conjunction with Microchip at its Bristol Trade Counter, on 25th March 2009 from 9.00am-4.30pm. The one-day event will provide an introduction to USB, covering specification and protocol, the USB peripheral in Microchip’s PIC18F USB microcontroller (MCU), and will conclude with some tips on specific system level design.

The workshop

Attendees should be familiar with Microchip’s PIC18F USB MCUs and have a working knowledge of MPLAB C18. This hands-on class provides an introduction to the MPLAB C18 USB firmware library and will give instruction on how to select a Windows driver to interface a Windows program to an USB device. All practical demonstrations will be based on the PIC18F4550, PICDEM FS USB evaluation board, and MPLAB C18.

Following an introduction to full-speed USB, attendees will be guided through Microchip’s MCHPFSUSB firmware solutions and CDC class RS-232 replacement APIs. Microchip’s PC host custom class USB driver and MCHPFSUSB custom class device framework will also be examined.

Event registration

The seminar will be held at: RS’ Bristol Trade Counter, Day’s Lane, St. Philip’s, Bristol, BS2 0QA. The cost is just £80, which includes lunch and a Microchip PICDEM FS-USB demo board: the DM163025. Places are limited to 10 and will be offered to the first applicants. To register for this event please visit: rswww.com/electronics and scroll to the seminar link in the Tradeshows and Seminars window. Alternatively please send an email to marcus.goad@rswww.com. Please quote your RS account and purchase order number in the body of the email.

Further information and full product listings can be found at rswww.com/electronics.

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Catalog #637 Features 48 New Pages, 25,000+ New Products, and Nine New Suppliers

Mouser Electronics, Inc., known for its rapid introduction of the newest products, today announced the availability of the latest catalogue for 2009. Catalogue #637 (Feb – April 09) features 2,184 pages of the newest products and technologies from over 390 premiere electronic component suppliers. An additional 48 pages of new products were added to Catalogue #637, while pages of products not recommended for new designs were removed, thus ensuring design engineers access to the latest, most up-to-date products available for their new design projects. In the last quarter alone, Mouser has added over 25,000 new products to the online and free print catalogue.

Just in the last year, 32 new suppliers were added to Mouser’s popular linecard, nine of which were added in this first quarterly edition, including Hirose, Tektronix, Spansion, Wurth Electronics, IAR Systems, CalAmp, Hendon Semiconductor, AXSEM, and Kamaya.

Exciting new products featured in Catalogue #637 include Texas Instruments’ 2.4GHz RF Front End Range Extender CC2591, Microchip’s FCC-certified RF Transceiver Modules MRF24J40MA, Freescale’s 8-bit MCU with 32-bit compatibility MC9S08AC128/96, Molex’s SFP+ high speed, stacked multi-port connector, and Zilog’s ePIR™ Zdots® motion detection SBC.

“Mouser excels at rapidly introducing new products so our engineering customers can quickly integrate the newest technology into their new designs,” said Mouser President & CEO Glenn Smith. “By publishing a free, entirely new print catalogue every 90 days and updating our online catalogue and website daily, we give our customers a time-to-market advantage that no other distributor in the industry offers.”

Mouser Electronics is the only major distributor in the industry to publish a new catalogue every 90 days. Due to the constant evolution of new products, new technologies, and new applications for existing products, Mouser’s free catalogue makes it easy to quickly find the latest product information. Colored logos and banners easily identify new products, new technologies, and new suppliers; while four-color, heavy stock section guides aid in quick identification of product categories.

With an annual circulation of over one million and quarterly mailings of 250,000 worldwide, Mouser’s new print catalogue is designed to work in concert with the distributor’s online catalogue featuring more than a million products for easy browse and buy. In addition, mouser.com contains more than one million cross-referenced parts, over 900,000 downloadable data sheets, as well as supplier-specific reference designs, application notes, and other technical design information.

Mouser’s globalization effort has resulted in catalogue pricing for several foreign currencies, as well as local language web domains to serve other countries.

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Habia Cable appoints Aerco as a UK franchised distributor

Aerco has been appointed as a UK franchised distributor for Habia Cable. Founded in Stockholm in 1941, Habia Cable manufactures an extensive range of high-performance wires and cables serving the RF communications, defence, nuclear, military, aerospace and rail industries.

UK sales manager for Habia, Marc Pawson, said: “This partnership will increase the already high service levels offered in the UK by both companies. Aerco will offer next-day delivery from our extensive stock portfolio and provide customers a high level of technical expertise and support on high performance wire and cable.”

Habia Cable products include a range of super-flexible power cables for armoured vehicles and land systems that includes flame retardant, low smoke and zero halogen versions.

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Texas Instruments DLP® Pico™ Projector Development Kit Available from Digi-Key

Electronic components distributor Digi-Key Corporation, recognized by design engineers as having the industry’s broadest selection of electronic components available for immediate shipment, announced today that it is stocking Texas Instruments‘ DLP Pico Projector Development Kit, a fully integrated and miniaturized light projection solution that can be quickly and easily integrated into the design process for new industrial, medical, and consumer products.

Priced at $349 and available now exclusively on Digi-Key’s global websites, the Pico Projector Development Kit (Digi-Key part number 296-23836-ND) is a new way of enabling developers to integrate digital projection into their own innovative applications. Potential applications for this kit include simple 3D measurement applications, virtual cosmetics, augmented reality, battery or USB powered display applications, projection of video and images, and miniature applications that do not have space for a large display.

The Pico Projector Development Kit includes an HVGA resolution, DLP projection device with a light engine that uses three solid-state color LEDs as a low power light source. The kit also includes a power supply cable and video cable specifically for connecting to a BeagleBoard, a development board that contains the OMAP35x processor and is supported by an open-source Linux community. The Pico Projector Development Kit is specifically designed to interface with the BeagleBoard to expedite development.

“We are very excited about offering TI‘s DLP Pico technology to our customers. The Pico Projector Development Kit will enable the development of a wide array of embedded systems in the high-growth medical, industrial and consumer segments, creating flexibility and options on how information and content is shared. With regard to the pairing of the pico projector and the BeagleBoard, it will be fun to see what engineers come up with using these two gadgets,” said Mark Larson, Digi-Key president and COO.

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Premier Farnell will carry Bridgelux’s innovative LED Array products, developed specially to provide lamp and luminaire manufacturers with a solution for simplified system level integration

Premier Farnell plc, the leading multi-channel, high service distributor supporting millions of engineers and purchasing professionals worldwide, has signed a new global franchise agreement with Bridgelux, Inc. Based in Sunnyvale, Calif., Bridgelux is a technology leader in high-power, cost-effective and energy-efficient LED solutions. Bridgelux controls all of the core technologies from the epitaxial process to packaging —enabling the Company to manufacture both high power LED chips and LED Arrays. The Next Generation Lighting Industry Alliance (NGLIA) estimates the global lighting market to be about $40 billion USD. This agreement will provide Premier Farnell with the latest LED lighting technologies for its design engineering customer base.

The Bridgelux family of LED Array products delivers high performance, compact, and cost-effective solid state lighting (SSL) solutions to serve the general lighting market. These products combine the higher efficiency, lifetime and reliability benefits of LEDs with the light output levels of many conventional lighting sources. Available product options deliver between 400 and 2,000 lumens under application conditions in cool, neutral and warm white colours. The high lumen output integrated sources reduce system design complexity, enabling miniaturized cost-effective lamp and luminaire designs. Applications include down lights, task and accent, track, hospitality, architectural, street, wide area, and security lighting.

Premier Farnell continues to invest in and drive its own technical support programmes to ensure that electronic design engineers around the world receive the support, information and data on the latest technologies and products from suppliers like Bridgelux as quickly and effectively as possible. This scheme provides designers with immediate web access to data and support, as well as reduced delivery lead times.

“This new global franchise agreement with Bridgelux will continue to strengthen our SSL product offerings for our world-wide design engineering customer base,” said David Shen Head of Global Technology Marketing at Premier Farnell. “We are pleased to be working with a company that has a variety of LED technologies which produce the highest luminosity on the market, with a special process to reduce heat. Clearly with this technology we will be able to provide the necessary lighting solutions for our customer base. Bridgelux LED Array products are ideal for Premier Farnell’s high service multi-channel marketing capabilities, which offers great support to our design engineering customers as they strive to bring their latest products to market as quickly, cost effectively and efficiently as possible.”

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Pattern 105 connectors available from Aerco

The VEAM PT range of Pattern 105 connectors from ITT Cannon is now available from stock at Aerco. Conforming to the rigorous requirements of BS9522 and inter-mateable with Mil-C-26482 series 1, these high performance connectors were originally designed for communications, military and industrial applications and are ideal for military vehicles and radio equipment, mass transit and off-road vehicles and process control and industrial automation equipment.

Lightweight and rugged, Pattern 105 connectors are available in either olive drab cadmium or zinc cobalt finishes as standard and alternative finishes, including RoHS compliant plating, are offered. They are available in solder, crimp and audio variants and the range features retained coupling nuts and arctic-style couplings for use in harsh environments.

Pattern 105 connectors have a positive coupling, 3-bayonet pin construction with audible mate and contact arrangements from 2 to 61 contacts. Alternate keyway polarisation and insert orientation is available to avoid cross-plugging and mis-mating and the connectors can be supplied with a wide range of cable accessories. They are available with solder or crimp terminations and grounding springs for EMC shielding.

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Atmel microcontrollers from Nu Horizons eliminate excess power consumption in cost-constrained applications

Available from Nu Horizons Electronics, the two latest additions to Atmel’s tinyAVR family of microcontrollers are the ATtiny48 and ATtiny88. The new 32-pin devices are pin compatible with Atmel’s ATmega48 and -88 parts and offer feature optimised alternatives for cost-constrained applications.

The new microcontrollers use most of the features of Atmel’s picoPower technology to eliminate excess power consumption. They include brown-out detection circuitry that can be turned off during sleep modes, a power reduction register that powers down individual peripherals, and digital input disable registers that remove leakage current on ADC input pins.

ATtiny48 and -88 are suitable for a wide range of applications in consumer, communications and industrial electronics where the application code is moderate, but many I/O pins are needed. Low power capability also makes the new devices suitable for battery-powered or power constrained systems. Target applications include: white goods, remote access systems, HVAC, mobile phones, battery chargers, industrial control, health care, wireless equipment and peripherals.

The ATtiny48 features 4kBytes of in-system self-programmable Flash, and the ATtiny88, 8kBytes. Both parts include a 64 byte in-system programmable EEPROM, internal temperature sensor, 10-bit ADC and a byte-oriented I2C interface for 400kHz I2C communication.

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