Electronic components distributor Digi-Key Corporation today announced it received the award for Top Growth Distributor for 2009 from Murata Power Solutions, an authorized Digi-Key supplier partner.

Digi-Key received the award from Murata Power Solutions during the EDS show in Las Vegas, Nevada earlier this month.

“Digi-Key takes pride in knowing our efforts to distribute the broadest range of top-quality products to customers worldwide are recognized by our leading authorized supplier partners,” said Jeff Shafer, Digi-Key’s vice president of interconnect, passive, and electromechanical product. “We are honored to be named the Top Growth Distributor in 2009 and look forward to continuing our successful partnership with Murata Power Solutions.”

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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 now stocking C&K Components’ RNCS series of passivated Nichrome chip resistors, an ideal low-cost alternative for expensive and hard-to-find tantalum nitride chip resistors.

“Digi-Key is proud to accept the Distributor of the Year award from C&K Components,” said Jeff Shafer, Digi-Key’s vice president of interconnect, passive, and electromechanical product. “Digi-Key continues to provide customers with top-quality electronic components from our world-class authorized supplier partners like C&K Components. This award confirms Digi-Key’s commitment to providing the best service possible and strengthens our resolve to be the global electronic components distributor of choice.”

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Digi-Key recognized for providing employment to veterans and active members of US military

During a ceremony held May 12, 2010, electronic components distributor Digi-Key Corporation was recognized by the United States Department of Labor (US DOL) for providing employment to veterans and active members of the US military service. The ceremony was held at Digi-Key’s facility in Thief River Falls, Minnesota.

Rick Trontvet, Digi-Key’s vice president of human resources, accepted the award on Digi-Key’s behalf from Heather Higgins, Regional Administrator for the US Department of Labor, and other representatives of the US DOL.

“Digi-Key recognizes the importance of employing veterans and active members of the US military,” Trontvet said. “We are very proud to have so many talented employees who have dedicated themselves not only to their jobs at Digi-Key, but also to serving their country. It is a great honor to be recognized for the support we provide to veterans and active military service members.”

Digi-Key is the only company in northern Minnesota to receive this recognition from the US DOL. Digi-Key currently employs many veterans as well as a dozen individuals who are active members of the military, two of whom are currently on military leave that involves overseas service.

At the ceremony on May 12, Higgins said, “The US Department of Labor views Digi-Key as a model employer that is making a difference to the residents of northern Minnesota by providing career opportunities in a challenging economic environment. The quality employment opportunities afforded to area veterans by Digi-Key is further testament to Digi-Key’s patriotic spirit and appreciation for the skills veterans bring to the workplace.”

In addition to providing employees with legally required military leave that does not negatively affect their pay and benefits, Digi-Key also provides active military members with holiday pay for company holidays missed during military leave.

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Electronic components distributor Digi-Key Corporation, recognized by design engineers as having the industry’s broadest selection of electronic components available for immediate shipment, today announced one of its Interconnect and Electromechanical Product Managers, Mike Finseth, has received the Product Manager Excellence award for outstanding service from Omron Electronic Components, LLC.

Omron created the Product Manager Excellence award to recognize the length of time a product manager has been assigned to Omron, the quality of the relationship, and the success attributed to those efforts. Omron’s National Distribution Sales Manager, Kris Whitehouse, and Distribution Sales Representative, Caroline Wells, presented the award to Finseth during a WebEx web conference May 4, 2010.

Since joining Digi-Key in 1989, Finseth has been the assigned product manager for Omron, which has been an authorized Digi-Key supplier since 1982. Omron provides products and services in the industrial automation, electronic components, social systems, and healthcare markets.

“Mike has worked extremely hard to build a strong relationship with his contacts at Omron,” said Jeff Shafer, Digi-Key’s vice president of interconnect, passive and electromechanical product. “His efforts have been instrumental in the incredible levels of growth Digi-Key has experienced during our continued partnership with Omron.”

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Electronic components distributor Digi-Key Corporation, recognized by design engineers as having the industry’s broadest selection of electronic components available for immediate shipment, today announced it has stock on Tyco Electronics’ Impact high density backplane connectors.

The following Impact high-density backplane connectors are now available for purchase on Digi-Key’s global websites and are slated to be featured in future print and online catalogs:

* 2007788-2 (Digi-Key #A100860-ND) 3-pair, 10-column Connector Header
* 2007705-1 (Digi-Key #A100861-ND) 3-pair, 10-column Connector Receptacle

Tyco Electronics‘ new Impact backplane connector system is designed for increased speed and density to meet the future system upgrades and next generation requirements of data networking and telecommunications equipment. The Impact backplane system also offers our customers a value-added approach of speed, density, cost and long-term reliability.

The Impact connector design system contains a unique broad-edge coupled design which utilizes low impedance, localized ground return path in an optimized differential pair array. Additionally, differential pairs are tightly coupled and surrounded by ground structures to isolate the pairs, which in turn reduces crosstalk and increases overall bandwidth performance with minimal performance variance.

Backplane header construction on the Impact connector offers air pockets selectively placed in the header floor to isolate signal pairs. The header signal pins are straight with no forms or offsets, which increase the mechanical strength of the pins. The mating interface features a bifurcated beam with two points of contact with the second staggered 1mm behind the first for maximum reliability.

The Impact connector offers two different hole sizes and tail lengths with the smaller one providing optimal electrical performance. The larger hole size is ideal for backplane applications that have a slightly larger plate through hole and pin length for manufacturing ability of the printed circuit board.

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Electronic components distributor Digi-Key Corporation, recognized by design engineers as having the industry’s broadest selection of electronic components available for immediate shipment, today announced its website, www.digikey.com, received the award for “best website” May 10 at the EDS Best of the Best awards show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“This award from EDS is confirmation that Digi-Key is on the right track when it comes to our website,” said Mark Larson, Digi-Key’s president and COO. “We have taken great strides to make our website more than a source for electronic components. We want digikey.com to be a destination for design engineers and purchasers to obtain information that aids in the design process and helps streamline time to market.”

Digi-Key’s website was ranked #1 by North American engineers for value of overall content, product ordering mechanism, access speed, product search engine, ease of navigation, value of technical information, and organization of site based on the August 2009 EE|Times Distribution Study.

Digikey.com allows users to place orders and check order status; create, save and privately share bills of materials (BOMs) using the BOM Manager; become registered users; view Digi-Key’s expansive line card of more than 440 authorized supplier partners; and access information pertaining to electronic components.

Users can download the Digi-Key Toolbar to help engineers, purchasers, and electronic enthusiasts gain quick access to information, part details, training and more from their favorite browser. From the Digi-Key Toolbar, users can conduct a parametric part search, view an index of Digi-Key’s products, view Digi-Key’s expansive line card, find out what’s “New at Digi-Key,” and access Digi-Key’s exclusive PTM Online…On Demand® product training modules and Technology Zones. The Digi-Key Toolbar is customizable and allows users to view the Digi-Key website in their language of choice.

More than 700 PTM Online…On Demand® product training modules focus on various applications for lighting, microcontroller, sensors, and wireless solutions and provide both audio and non-audio versions as well as parts lists. Digi-Key’s PTMs are available at www.digikey.com/ptm.

Digi-Key’s exclusive Technology Zones provide information on Lighting Solutions, Microcontroller Solutions, Sensor Solutions (newly added), and Wireless Solutions. For more information, visit www.digikey.com/technologyzones.

The Digi-Key Technical Support team is available 24/7 via telephone, e-mail, and live web chat. The Technical Support team members are trained by manufacturers to answer customer questions regarding product specifications. For more information, call 1-800-344-4539 or e-mail techs@digikey.com.

Digi-Key’s Design Support Services (DSS) team is available between the hours of 8:30 a.m and 5 p.m. CT via telephone, e-mail and web-conferencing software to provide engineers with both general information and complimentary project-specific assistance. For more information about DSS, visit www.digikey.com/design, call 1-877-353-3744 or e-mail design@digikey.com.

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Nu Horizons Electronics Corp. (NASDAQ:NUHC), a leading global distributor of advanced technology semiconductor, display, illumination, power, system and telecommunication solutions, today announced the signing of a distribution agreement with H&D Wireless AB, a leading provider of Wi-Fi solutions. The agreement, which is effective immediately, involves the distribution of H&D’s Wi-Fi modules and development kits throughout Nu Horizons’ global network.

“The addition of H&D Wireless offers our customers a greater breadth of technology from a leading wireless specialist,” said Rita Megling, senior vice president of marketing for Nu Horizons. “H&D’s world-class Wi-Fi system solutions are supported on leading Microcontroller platforms, and together with its platform partner Atmel®, offers compliant Wi-Fi software that allows for quick customer design turnaround. Their Wi-Fi solutions offer ultra low power, small size and low cost and are used in a wide range of applications within the energy control, digital media, fitness, healthcare, industrial control, retail, and location and tracking markets.”

“The excellent logistics and technical sales capabilities offered by Nu Horizons give potential customers around the world immediate access to H&D’s technology,” added Pär Bergsten, CEO for H&D Wireless AB. “Our Wi-Fi solutions are deemed best in class, and we also offer our customers with reference designs support for multimedia and telematics applications that reduces the end customer design effort and cost. Nu Horizons successful demand creation model should bring H&D many new opportunities to make wireless sensor and multimedia data available over the internet.”

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Expands sales and marketing team with 3 new people

Anglia has expanded its sales and marketing team with three new appointments. Jaqui Fretwell joins Anglia as Divisional Marketing Manager – Business Development and Shirley Vacher and Nicole Claxton join as Key Account Managers.

Commenting, Jim Ward said, “Anglia’s strong emphasis on investing in our customer relationships has been a key factor in bringing our business through the recent downturn successfully. As the market recovers, we are continuing that strategy and bringing on board three individuals with exceptional skills and experience to enlarge our customer facing organisation.”

Jaqui Fretwell has spent 17 years in the industry and joins as Divisional Marketing Manager, reporting to Jim Ward, Sales and Marketing Director.

Nicole Claxton and Shirley Vacher are both seasoned sales professionals. Claxton, who will look after customers in Surrey, Oxfordshire and Middlesex, has a 14 year track record in distribution sales and joins from Acal where she spent three years as Account Manager. Previously, she has held sales positions at Memec, Avnet Millennium, 2001 and Arrow.

Vacher will cover Wiltshire, Hampshire and Berkshire, and joins from sales generation specialists the Newbury Group. She brings 25 years sales experience to the role, including ten years in component distribution with Acal, Gothic and Advanced Crystal Technology.

As Key Account Managers, both will report to Debbie Houseley Stott, Regional Sales Manager, South.

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Solid State Supplies is now a franchised distributor for Isolink Inc, a manufacturer of high-performance opto-couplers for the space, military, hybrid, industrial and telecommunications markets. The new agreement makes Solid State Supplies the sole franchised distributor for Isolink in the UK.

“Isolink’s products are state of the art and have an unbeatable track record for reliability and performance in both space and military applications,” said Andrew Cornwell, Business Development Manager at Solid State Supplies. “This makes their range of opto-couplers a perfect fit alongside the other suppliers in our hi-rel portfolio.”

“Solid State Supplies’ technical knowledge and experience in the hi-rel sector is second to none,” said Manor Narayanan, CEO at Isolink. “Their complementary product lines and strong relationships with our mutual customers make them an ideal distribution partner for Isolink.”

In its range of miniature surface-mount opto-couplers, Isolink uses a novel approach to couple light from the emitter to the detector, which are mounted side by side. This technique improves isolation and simultaneously reduces the input-to-output capacitance, without compromising the tight Current Transfer Ratio (CTR) distribution. Careful selection of state-of-the-art light coupling material further advances the temperature cycling performance of Isolink’s products.

Applications for Isolink’s offering include switch mode power supplies (SMPS), dc-dc converters, pulse width modulations (PWM), pulse transformers, servo amplifier feedback, isolation amplifiers, industrial controls (motor and SCR), ground loop eliminations, data acquisition systems (LAN), solid state relays (SSR), robotics, medical and telecommunications.

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Avnet Memec, the highly specialised semiconductor distributor of Avnet Electronics Marketing EMEA, announces the extension of its distribution agreement with Halo Electronics. Previously serving customers in France, Avnet Memec will now extend its strategic partnership to include distributing Halo’s magnetics devices and inductors for RF and power solutions in the UK, Austria, Italy, Iberia, Scandinavia, Benelux, the Baltic States, East Europe, Turkey and Greece.

Under the terms of this agreement, Avnet Memec will distribute Halo Electronics’ premier datacom magnetics solutions. Technology leader Halo Electronics, Inc., a technology leader in many areas, manufactures the highest quality communication magnetics including signal transformers, filters, CMR chokes and low power DC/DC converter magnetics.

Jon Ellis, vice president Technical Marketing, Avnet Memec, added: “Halo’s components are much more than just transformer products. They represent the leading data transmission magnetic solutions offered today, not only in specification and performance, but equally important in quality and production engineering. Halo’s products are optimised for Ethernet and Telecom applications, and their comprehensive range of products enable customers to achieve very tangible time-to-market and cost reductions. Halo has also worked hard to embed themselves with many of our semiconductor partners as the transformer or connector of choice, and our customers across Europe will appreciate the delivery of proven technical solutions. Avnet Memec is already very well positioned in all of the markets for which Halo products have been designed, and the combination of our forces across Europe and industry segments will help both Avnet Memec and Halo to drive their advantage.”

“With choosing Avnet Memec as distributor for our datacom magnetics solutions we will be able to better serve the needs from our customers. With their extensive team of technical sales and field application engineers across Europe, we will significantly improve our market reach in Europe,” added Jeff Heaton, vice president, Halo Electronics. “Avnet Memec is recognized as one of the leading technical distributors in Europe and we are proud to be part of Avnet Memec’s product portfolio.”

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