Rapid is delighted to announce the introduction of a wide range of connection products from leading manufacturer EDAC, for a variety of strength applications from marine and broadcast to automotive and domestic use.

The products cover virtually all requirements and are of a high quality design and manufactured standard. Over 70 lines are available in all, including five distinct ranges – the 565 and 570 series of waterproof connectors, 516 series of rack and panel connectors, card edge connectors, USB 3.0 connectors and 520 series of hermaphroditic connectors & cable assemblies.
The 565 and 570 series of waterproof connectors are suitable for a wide range of applications, from external lighting arrays and outside broadcast equipment to automotive and marine products. Designed for use in both extreme moisture and non-submersion situations, the IP67 connectors support both low-level signal and power applications up to 12A and 300V.

Also available is EDAC’s established 516 series of rack and panel connectors, which engineers have relied on for 40 years of providing ultra-secure connections in the oil, gas and railway industries. The hardware provides for 288 different polarising combinations, ensuring the right plug is always mated with the right receptacle.

Rapid is also delighted to be offering the EDAC range of card edge connectors, which has the potential to offer 333,000 different configurations and remains a highly cost-effective connection solution. 12 to 86 way options are available, as well as micro versions with a wide variety of mounting options.

EDAC’s USB 3.0 connectors provide a significant leap forward in data transfer speeds supporting rates up to 5Gbps and are fully compatible with USB 2.0 connectors. They can be used for applications ranging from computers, printers and digital cameras to medical equipment and automotive products. They support hot plugging and are available as Type A and Type B 90° board through-hole receptacles and in a Micro SMT option.

Completing the family of products is the 520 series of connectors & cable assemblies, which utilise gold-plated hermaphroditic contacts to produce an ultra-reliable connection with four gas-tight mating surfaces.

Paul Hemming, product manager of connectors at Rapid, said: ‘We are delighted to become an EDAC distributor. EDAC have a proud history of innovation in the connection field, from card edge technology to 3.0 USB, and we look forward to supplying more EDAC products in the future.’

Rapid can support customers with competitive pricing, full technical support and product sourcing. Up to +100 price breaks are available on these five EDAC ranges. For more details, technical specifications and datasheets please visit the Rapid website.

» Contact Details for Rapid Electronics Ltd.

MSC presents an Eclipse-based platform, the Eclipse Embedded studio (e2studio), from Renesas Electronics at embedded world 2012, Nuremberg in Hall 2, Booth 2-219 from February 28 to March 1, 2012. The e2studio is a new Eclipse C/C++ Development Toolkit (CDT) based development platform for Renesas’ RL78, RX and V850 families of microcontrollers (MCUs).

The e2studio is equipped with build phase plug-ins for compiler toolchains from Renesas, IAR, Green Hills Software and the free-of-charge KPIT Cummins GNU compilers. Alternatively, a complete open-source solution based on Eclipse can be used. Besides plug-in support for the various compilers, the Eclipse development environment also provides for each version a corresponding project management, version control and other useful productivity tools.

Debug support includes Renesas’ E1 & E20 on-chip debuggers, Renesas’ IECUBE full specification emulators and Segger J-Link debugger. The implemented GDB interface enables powerful debugging functions such as real time memory update and trace.

e2studio is available either bundled with Renesas toolchains or as a free-of-charge download from its website.

Contact MSC Vertriebs GmbH

Etek Europe, a leading supplier of products and services to the European electronics industry, announces that Mike Nelson, Managing Director of Etek Europe, has received a “SMART FELLOW AWARD” from the Directors of the SMART Group UK during Southern Manufacturing & Electronics 2012, which took place February 15-16, 2012 in Farnborough, United Kingdom.

Sue Knight, Technical Chairman of SMART Group UK, presented this prestigious award on behalf of the SMART Group Directors to Mike Nelson of Etek Europe for his active participation in the furtherance of the aims of the SMART Group in 2011.

Etek Europe is firmly established as a quality provider of products and services to the European electronics industry and prides itself on maintaining strong relationships with both suppliers and clients, which has proven to be paramount to the continued growth and success of the company.

When asked to comment on this award, Mike Nelson of Etek Europe stated, “I am very pleased to accept this award on behalf of the Etek team. The SMART Group is a great organization, where engineers from a wide range of manufacturers and industries can discuss the latest technologies and process issues.”

Southern Manufacturing 2012 welcomed more than 600 exhibitors from around the world through its doors, and with at least a 20 percent increase in last year’s record-breaking numbers and next year’s exhibit already half sold out, organizers have declared that it was the biggest Southern Manufacturing exhibition ever staged.

element14 and modding extraordinaire Ben Heck use a bit of reverse engineering to transform an old-school InfraWave oven into an engineer’s ultimate reflow tool on the latest episode of “The Ben Heck Show.”

The latest segment covers the many intricate steps required to build a reflow oven, from deconstructing an InfraWave oven, to attaching a thermocouple, to mounting the solid state relay (SSR) control. Special guest Chris Kraft also stops by to give a hands-on lesson in pairing an SSR with an Arduino Max6675 integrated circuit to help gauge the oven’s temperature.

“I had a lot of fun with this show for a number of reasons,” said Ben. “Not only was I able to hang out and collaborate with my good pal, Chris Kraft, but together we were able to engineer a staple in any design engineer’s ‘tool belt’ – a handy reflow oven for those hard-to-mount components.”

The final build is a budget-friendly solder oven featuring an LCD screen and controller case that is both creative and handy; enabling engineers to easily apply small surface-mount components to PCB circuit boards that generally can’t be done by hand.

“Ben’s latest project uses a bit of creativity and engineering resourcefulness to turn an ordinary oven into an extremely useful tool,” said Kevin Yapp, chief marketing officer, Premier Farnell. “It shows you there are no limits to innovation when you combine a good design idea with helpful peer collaboration.”

Fans of the show episode are invited to join the discussion online at element14 to enter for a chance to win Ben’s custom soldering oven for hours upon hours of soldering fun.

» Contact details for Farnell

Acal BFi announces the launch of a new Hectronic embedded computer based on AMD Fusion G-series APUs. The H6059 Qseven module integrates the new AMD T40E and T40R ultra low-power dual-core and single-core accelerated processing units (APU), which combine a low-power CPU and an advanced graphics processing unit (GPU) into a single embedded device. The H6059 also integrates the A55E embedded chipset in the Qseven standard revision 1.2 compliant module measuring just 70 mm x 70 mm.

As a sister company to Hectronic, Acal BFi will provide specialist technical support on the H6059 in addition to supporting Hectronic’s full range of embedded computing modules. The combination of Acal BFi’s expertise in design for harsh environments, with Hectronic’s leading-edge embedded computing platforms, will enable OEMs to enrich their products with new levels of processing and graphics performance, combined with low power consumption and an extremely compact size.

The integration of the Radeon 6250 GPU into the CPU, allows the H6059 to offer increased 2D/3D and motion-video acceleration performance for general purpose GPU (GPGPU) computing applications using AMD’s Open CL support. The on-die GPU also helps to avoid the memory bus bottlenecks which can occur when using a discrete GPU.

Applications which could benefit from the H6059’s increased processing and graphics performance include digital signage, high-end HMIs, and portable test and measurement as well as in imaging and vision systems based on high-end cameras.

The H6059 also offers a rich set of I/O interfaces which include four PCI Express ports; eight USB 2.0 ports; two SATA ports; LVDS and the new DVl, HDMI and DisplayPort digital display interfaces, as well as an on-board Intel 82583 Gigabit Ethernet controller. Legacy I/O is supported through the LPC bus and the module has BIOS support for Super I/O devices on the carrier board. Full legacy ISA bus features, such as I/O mapping in memory, are also supported to enable industrial customers to easily migrate their installed product base to the new performance levels enabled by the H6059. SDIO is provided through an onboard USB-to-SDIO controller.

The H6059 supports up to 4GB of on-board soldered DDRIII DRAM, as well as an on-board soldered BGA SATA Flash SSD of up to 32GB. The BIOS is based on the new Phoenix SecureCore Tiano UEFI BIOS, with BSPs for XP Embedded, Windows Embedded Standard 7 and Linux.

Acal BFi will sample the H6059 Qseven embedded computing module to lead OEM customers towards the end of the first quarter of 2012, with an industrial-grade version of the H6059 planned for introduction later this year. A starter kit is available to support development with this module.

For more information, please visit: http://www.acaltechnology.com/uk/hectronic2

Alpha Micro has further extended its portfolio of wireless components that draw energy from the environment with the introduction of the IPS-EVAL-EH-01, a universal energy-harvesting evaluation kit for autonomous wireless sensors and other sub-100mW applications. Developed by Infinite Power Solutions, the kit features the company’s award-winning THINERGY® MEC201 solid-state, rechargeable, micro-energy cell (MEC) – a unique type of thin-film battery with industry-leading performance and the recently released MAX17710 from Maxim Integrated Products, the industry’s first complete power-management integrated circuit (PMIC) solution for energy harvesting and battery protection. Ideal for design engineers keen to develop and evaluate self-sustaining “green’’ power supply solutions, displacing the use of conventional batteries and super capacitors that require frequent replacement, it can also be used to power popular third-party micro-controller and radio module development kits, enabling users to create and evaluate a variety of self-powered microelectronic applications.

The IPS-EVAL-EH-01 circuit board footprint is similar to a credit card and consists of three key elements: energy harvesting, energy storage and energy management. Due to the unique and ultra-low quiescent current of the integrated PMIC, and the low self-discharge rate of the integrated THINERGY MEC201, the IPS-EVAL-EH-01 evaluation kit efficiently accepts charge currents less than one microampere, making it ideal for storing harvested energy. An amorphous silicon photovoltaic solar array is integrated for out-of-the-box functionality and recharges the MEC201 to a 100 percent state of charge in about 30 minutes in full sun and in approximately eight hours in typical office lighting (~1,500 lux). In addition, the board provides an interface to any type of external ambient energy-harvesting transducer. Example energy sources include light (captured by a variety of photovoltaic technologies), vibration (from a piezo-electric element), heat (via thermo-electric generator), and radio-frequencies (captured by a RF harvester or near-field communications (NFC) receiver. The kit also features an interface header and 6-pin connector that are compatible with popular micro-controller and low power radio development kits available from a variety of leading semiconductor and module manufacturers such as Anaren, BlueRadios, Energy Micro, Microchip, Silicon Laboratories and Texas Instruments.

Harvested energy is efficiently stored in a THINERGY MEC201-7S, which is a 4V, 0.7 mAh capacity rechargeable battery ideally suited for energy-harvesting applications. The MEC201-7S is a thin, flexible, solid-state and near loss-less energy storage cell the size of a postage stamp. Self-discharge is so low and insignificant that energy can be reliably stored for decades on a single charge. IPS continues to lead the industry in delivering the most efficient and powerful batteries in its size class – outperforming all other energy storage technologies currently on the market, such as supercapacitors, coin cells, printed batteries and other thin-film batteries.

Extremely small, powerful and robust, the MEC201 features a unique, patented, flexible package design that maximizes the active area of the cell to deliver high energy and power density. The MECs can be stacked vertically in a parallel configuration for more power and capacity without consuming additional system footprint. For example, a five cell MEC201 stack is approximately 1mm in total height and delivers an amazing 200mA of continuous discharge current (approximately 0.5W of power). The MEC201 can recharge to 90 percent in only 15 minutes and can be recharged more than 10,000 times. With an expected lifetime of up to 20 years, THINERGY MECs require no maintenance or periodic replacement compared to other batteries and supercapacitors, allowing for the lowest total cost of ownership. Moreover, THINERGY MECs contain no heavy metals, are eco-friendly and completely safe. As a result, THINERGY MECs are changing how the power source for micro-electronic systems is being designed, both now and in the future.

Efficient energy management is achieved by the MAX17710 PMIC, the industry’s first IC to integrate all of the power-management functions for ambient energy harvesting, charging, and protecting THINERGY MECs. Operating at an ultra-low current level measured in nanoamps, the MAX17710 accepts energy from a variety of poorly regulated energy harvesting sources with output levels ranging from 1µW to 100mW. The device integrates a programmable input boost regulator and needs no expensive external components to charge a MEC with energy sources as low as 0.8V. It protects the MEC by using a linear shunt-series regulator. An integrated, ultra-low-quiescent current, adjustable low-dropout linear regulator (LDO) with selectable voltages of 3.3V, 2.3V or 1.8V, allows the MAX17710 to adapt to a variety of loads. Packaged in a low-profile 0.5mm TQFN, it enables a new class of ultra-thin applications.

Applications for this combination of energy harvester, THINERGY MEC and MAX17710 PMIC include remote/autonomously powered wireless sensors, biometric security systems, remote controls, memory and real-time clock (RTC) back up, asset tracking, semi-active RFID tags, powered smart cards, smart home and building energy-management, machine monitoring systems, medical applications, and a myriad of portable consumer electronics.

» Contact details for Alpha Micro

Digi-Key Corporation, has expanded its distribution agreement with Elektron Technology to include Arcolectric products globally.
“We are pleased to expand this global distribution agreement with Elektron Technology,” said Jeff Shafer, vice president of global interconnect, passives, and electromechanical product. “Arcolectric can offer our customer base the leading lines of switches, indicator lights, and fuse holders for diverse markets ranging from computers to medical appliances.”

“Elektron Technology is pleased to strengthen its current relationship with Digi-Key by adding the Arcolectric line of switches and indicator lights,” said Matt McElreath, director of sales and marketing, the Americas, Elektron Technology. “If the success we have achieved with our Bulgin line is any indication, we look forward to great things to come with this new endeavor.”

Arcolectric is globally known for creating the latest switches and indicator lights. The switch line encompasses rockers, toggles, push buttons, vandal resistant switches, slide switches, safety switches, refrigerator/appliance, and rotary switches. Arcolectric’s line of indicator lights offers an array of colors, sizes, voltages, and styles, including LED, neon, and incandescent lamps.

» Contact Details for Digi-Key Corporation

Digi-Key Corporation today announced it has signed a global distribution agreement with Ramtron International Corporation.

Ramtron is a leading developer and supplier of nonvolatile ferroelectric random access memory (F-RAM) and integrated semiconductor solutions. The distribution agreement will make Ramtron’s entire line of F-RAM-enabled semiconductors available for purchase from www.digikey.com and Digi-Key’s international websites.

“The adoption of F-RAM technology and products is growing quickly and Ramtron is a leading supplier in this product category,” said Mark Zack, Digi-Key’s vice president of semiconductors. “We look forward to working with Ramtron as a pioneer in the research and development of ferroelectric materials and their integration into a variety of semiconductor products.”
Pioneered by Ramtron, F-RAM offers unique features relative to other semiconductor technologies. It is a nonvolatile memory that does not lose its data content when power is removed or interrupted. F-RAM combines the nonvolatile benefits of PROM (programmable read-only memory) with the speed and ease-of-use of RAM (random access memory) into a single device. Ramtron offers a portfolio of hundreds of innovative F-RAM-based solutions including standard, ultra-low energy, and wireless memory products. Available and in stock from Digi-Key, Ramtron products offer unique benefits to a wide variety of industrial, consumer, automotive, and military/aerospace markets.

“Over the past several years, Digi-Key has embraced the online revolution – evolving to serve not only customers’ evaluation and prototype component orders, but to serve worldwide customers’ needs over the entire production life cycle,” said Scott Emley, Ramtron’s vice president of worldwide marketing. “By taking advantage of Digi-Key’s comprehensive product launch, technical training, and online support infrastructure, Ramtron instantly extends its worldwide reach with its F-RAM-based semiconductor solutions.”
As the leading integrated Internet-based distributor of electronic components, information about and inventory of millions of products is accessible to customers around the globe, with all products shipped from Digi-Key’s single, North American location. The company’s integrated business model provides product and support information online to help put engineers and procurement professionals in control as they solve tough product development challenges.

» Contact Details for Digi-Key Corporation

Mouser Electronics, Inc. today announced the availability of NXP Semiconductor’s LPC4300 Cortex™-M4 / M0 Dual-Core Microcontrollers.

NXP Semiconductors LPC4300 series microcontrollers (MCUs) boast the world’s first asymmetrical dual-core digital signal controller architecture, featuring ARM® Cortex™-M4 and Cortex-M0 processors. The NXP Cortex-M4 MCU with Cortex-M0 co-processor brings the advantage of developing digital signal processor (DSP) and MCU applications within a single architecture and development environment with features such as single cycle MAC, Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) techniques, saturating arithmetic, and a floating point unit.

The Cortex-M0 co-processor off-loads many of the data movement and I/O handling duties that can drain the bandwidth of the Cortex-M4 core. With its dual-core architecture and unique set of configurable peripherals, NXP Semiconductors LPC4300 MCUs enable development of a wide range of applications, such as embedded audio, motor control, power management, industrial automation, robotics, medical, and automotive accessories.

» Contact details for Mouser Electronics, Inc.

The new UR-50BD image data recorder from TEAC records lossless images and videos in high definition (HD) quality. This makes it ideal for all medical imaging processes such as ultrasounds, X-rays, endoscopies or video recordings used to aid in operations. Its broad compatibility permits storage and playback on many devices or media. The TEAC UR-50BD is now available from Rutronik.

Not only does the UR-50BD support all NTSC/PAL formats but also all HD video and audio formats. This makes it completely compatible with almost all medical imaging procedures used to create recordings. The stills or moving images created can be saved directly in real time onto removable media including the most widely used and cheapest media DVDs, USB sticks and Blu-ray discs.

DVI and HDMI interfaces are available for high-definition data archiving. The USB port on the front of the recorder allows for the convenient connection of USB sticks and hard disks. The stand-alone device has an integrated 100 GB HDD hard disk on which backup copies can be stored. CD, DVD and Blu-ray players as well as conventional PCs can be used to replay the recordings. The device is operated via RS-232C and USB.

» Contact Details for Rutronik