Avnet Memec EMEA, a division of Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT), is becoming the pan-European distributor of Echelon’s (NASDAQ: ELON) Commercial Markets product line for device and system manufacturers, the companies announced today. Echelon’s market-leading line of energy control network products — ranging from microprocessors, twisted pair and power line signaling component technology and system software to infrastructure products — is used in over 100 million devices and 300,000 buildings worldwide. The addition of Echelon’s products allows Avnet Memec to empower its building automation, managed street lighting, and renewable energy market efforts with the LonWorks® networking platform. Customers will be able to place orders with Avnet Memec as of July 1, 2011.

“Offering Echelon’s line of networking products to our existing customers will allow us to forge strong and fruitful relationships with the existing LonWorks community, and bring Echelon’s technology to a broad range of new customers,” said Steve Haynes, president of Avnet Memec EMEA. “The market for energy control networking is huge and the unique ability of Echelon’s technology to work across many applications and industries puts Avnet Memec in a strong market position – giving us a unified network solution offering with the flexibility and power to meet most any customer need.”

“Avnet brings a tremendous record of success to the market for energy control networks,” said Anders Axelsson, Echelon’s senior vice president of sales, commercial markets. “We’re seeing an increase in interest in how control networks enable energy management strategies, and it all begins with what’s designed into a device. Our relationship with Avnet promises to take the market for LonWorks networking-enabled products to a new level, and especially so in the vertical segments of building automation, street lighting, and renewables.”

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Initiative targets renewable energy, M2M interfacing, industrial control and more

Abacus – one of Europe’s leading interconnect, passive, electromechanical and power distributors – and world-renowned connector maker, FCI are launching a joint Europe-wide initiative aimed at helping designers choose the right connector for demanding applications in the industrial market. Renewable energy, Machine-to-Machine (M2M) interfacing and industrial control systems are typical examples of the Demanding Applications market segments that pose particular design and manufacturing challenges.

Explained Marco Enge, Product Marketing manager at Avnet Abacus: “Today, electronics systems are everywhere – in factories, warehouses, shops, the home, in cars and mass transportation. Equipment must operate under severe environmental, mechanical and electrical conditions, as well as tough regulatory conditions and high consumer expectations. Additionally, products must withstand frequent use over many years, both by experts and less experienced users. These factors have a significant impact on the selection of components such as connectors.”

Avnet Abacus has a long-established and successful distribution relationship with FCI across Europe, and the two companies have leveraged their respective expertise and strengths in product development, manufacturing and market knowledge to create a balanced connector product portfolio that addresses the fast-growing Demanding Applications industrial market sector. The companies have also created a microsite www.avnet-abacus.eu/fci that provides technical design-in information, animations and other downloads.

“FCI is fully committed to supporting the Demanding Applications industrial sector and is able to provide industry standard connectors with specific features relevant to specific requirements”, said Michael Clarner, Distribution Key Account Manger at FCI. “Examples include our Ribcage industrial board-to-board connector range with a contact system designed to ensure signal integrity under extremes of shock and vibration, and our flexible connector system with secure cable locking system that is manufactured in LCP to withstand high temperatures.”

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Avnet Memec today announced that it has been appointed as an authorised distributor for high end technology developer, Leadtek Research Inc.  The pan-European agreement enables Avnet Memec to distribute products from Leadtek‘s four business areas across all territories in Europe.

Avnet Memec will focus on promoting low power, compact global positioning systems (GPS) modules to the original equipment manufacturers (OEM) market, while also carrying products from Leadtek’s comprehensive computer multimedia, wireless communication, audio/video communication and telecare divisions.

“We are increasingly finding that products and systems designed for industrial or professional use require GPS and wireless connectivity.  Adding Leadtek’s innovative modules and devices to our product line-up will enable us to bring our customers a greater choice of advanced technologies and we are looking forward to working closely with them to develop new business throughout Europe,” commented John Jones, technical marketing manager, Avnet Memec.

Leadtek’s compact GPS OEM modules are based on wireless technology provider CSR’s latest SiRFstarIV technology and provide extremely low power GPS technology.  The Leadtek platform is built to take advantage of CSR’s SiRFAware full feature set, and is ideal for use in a range of applications including personal digital assistant (PDA) and pocket personal computing devices, fleet management and asset tracking, and car and marine navigation.

Banson Chang, communication business unit manager from Leadtek, commented, “Leadtek Research Inc. has been in the GPS business for more than 15 years, and we are glad to ally with Avnet Memec as our most important strategic partner in Europe. With their strength and advantage, we feel confident that we can increase our GPS OEM module market share in the upcoming future.”

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Leading distributor to deliver unique power conversion solutions

Avnet Abacus – one of Europe’s leading power, interconnect, passive and electromechanical distributors – and Aimtec, the global designer and manufacturer of modular power supplies, have announced that they are expanding their working relationship with the signing of a pan-European distribution agreement.
Announcing the deal, Graham McBeth, President of Avnet Abacus commented: “The addition of Aimtec complements our already broad portfolio of power products and gives our customers even more choice. We expect European designers to be particularly excited by Aimtec’s low power AC-DC power supplies, extremely broad range of DC-DC converters as well as their expanding range of LED drivers.”
Aimtec’s President, Vladimir Serafimov, added: “With their outstanding technical and sales teams, Avnet Abacus have already delivered an exceptional commitment in securing new design opportunities during 2010. We expect them to continue to strengthen Aimtec’s market reach across Europe, allowing us to deliver our unique power conversion solutions to an ever-expanding customer base.”

Network power, USB connectivity, solid state storage and more on show at Avnet’s European ‘Design Strategies for ARM Systems’ program

Avnet Abacus – one of Europe’s leading interconnect, passive, electromechanical and power distributors – is to support its sister companies EBV Elektronik, Silica, Avnet Memec & Avnet Embedded at the recently-announced ‘Design Strategies for ARM® Systems’ seminar program which will play in 16 cities across Europe in May and June.

Design engineers will gain an exclusive opportunity to learn how to harness ARM’s latest mobile technology which is finding applications not only in the consumer market, but also in other growth sectors such as defence and medical. Attendees will also benefit from learning how to leverage the many supporting technologies from Avnet EM’s other Design Strategies for ARM Systems partners such as Freescale Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics, Cypress, Microsoft and Xilinx.

Ensuring that designers choose the best passive, connector, power and emech technology to back up the enabling silicon solutions, Avnet Abacus – the IP&E division of Avnet Electronics Marketing– has a significant presence at these seminars, displaying power and connector products from Emerson, TE Connectivity , Molex, FCI and Varta Microbattery as well as the recently introduced Cymbet solid state franchise. Key focus will be given to technology product offerings including: Cymbet Energy harvesting power management solutions, Emerson network power supplies including the NPS20-M & NPS60-M series; and USB/HDMI and USB/IEEE-1394 connectors from Molex and TE Connectivity respectively.

Comments Avnet Abacus’ President Graham McBeth: “By introducing designers from Moscow to Milan and Stockholm to Cambridge to our broad portfolio of exciting technologies we hope that they will understand the real synergy that exists within the Avnet group companies. Avnet is known for spearheading design and that is as true for our product families as it is for our semiconductor colleagues.”

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congatec AG announces a collaboration with Avnet Embedded to serve the industrial market in UK, Nordic and Baltic with congatec’s Computer-On-Modules. The new partner will immediately begin utilizing the congatec products in UK, Ireland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Avnet Embedded provides displays, embedded computing hard- and software, customized products and system integration support.

As a sales partner, Avnet Embedded will have access to congatec’s extensive range of COM Express, XTX, ETX and Qseven products. While congatec focuses on the development of computer modules, the core activity at Avnet Embedded is to fulfill the British, Nordic and Baltic industrial market with a local service and support for Computer-On-Module projects in customers’ systems.

Mats Sjoebrand, Director North Europe at Avnet Embedded, comments: “The cooperation with congatec means that Avnet Embedded can now offer clients significant industrial solutions. We are seeing a huge demand for Computer-On-Modules like COM Express and Qseven based solutions and congatec has the most extensive and high quality portfolio of products in this field. With this cooperation we can extend our current product range. For new developments we are able to focus on the latest technology products.”

Gerhard Edi, CEO of congatec AG, adds: “From congatec’s point of view, Avnet Embedded is an ideal partner for the UK, Nordic and Baltic market. Together we can provide a truly unique combination of knowledge and skills in industrial products with the best service and support.”

Avnet Memec today announces that it is partnering with Lattice Semiconductor to bring the UK engineering community free training workshops for the MachXO2 Do-It-All PLD family.

The one day workshop will be held on the Tuesday 24th May in Reading and Thursday 26th May in Leicester from 09:00 am to 4:00 pm.

Stuart Edwards, Technical Manager at Avnet Memec UK, explains, “The workshops will be based around the X02 Pico Evaluation boards offering engineers attending a true hands-on experience covering the architecture and flexible uP peripheral applications. During the course of the day attendees will have access to three technology labs enabling them to get the very best from the new Diamond Software Suite and X02 PLDs.”

Attendees will leave with an X02 Pico Evaluation card, a copy of the Diamond Suite Software and course notes.

Avnet Abacus, a division of Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT), has announced a pan European distribution agreement with Cooper Bussmann, a global manufacturer of circuit protection, magnetic, connector and supercapacitor products. The new agreement extends an existing and successful global partnership between Avnet and Cooper Bussmann.

“Cooper Bussmann is a recognised leader offering innovative circuit protection products,” commented Alan Jermyn, vice president of marketing, Avnet Abacus “Its portfolio offers a wide range of both commodity & innovative over current & over voltage protection devices that will complement our existing portfolio. In addition, we see a significant market opportunity for the range of PowerStor(tm) supercapacitors, particularly within smart metering applications.”

Cooper Bussmann is a leading global manufacturer offering a broad range of components such as circuit protection devices, supercapacitors, connectors and magnetics. Under the new agreement, Avnet Abacus will be supporting the new generation of Cooper Bussmann supercapacitors and signal conditioning components, such as shielded power and high current inductors and pin configurable transformers. These solutions will support European customers in developing new and more effective power management solutions. Avnet Abacus will also be offering the MPI Series of inductors, a versatile solution addressing high transient spikes, high frequency filtering and EMI sensitive applications up to 10MHz. Cooper Bussmann circuit protection components available from Avnet Abacus in Europe will include glass and ceramic fuses, brick and chip fuses and PolySurg ESD suppressors to help protect high speed data circuits from electrostatic discharge without distorting data.

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Avnet Memec has today unveiled its new website, making it quicker and simpler for design engineers to find the product and support information required. The new online service at www.avnet-memec.eu now includes video content and tutorials for core products and technologies that are backed by support from Avnet Memec’s own engineering team.

“As we are all trying to squeeze more productivity into our work day, it was vital that we make it simple and quick for our customers to access relevant, useful information via our company site,” commented Tom Oelschlaeger, director communications at Avnet Memec. “The new online presence has been developed to meet the needs of our growing customer base and in response to research and feedback from them. The contemporary look, feel and structure of the site will enable visitors to rapidly access and filter relevant product and application data.”

Avnet Memec has added an innovative video portal to provide access to supplier tutorials without the need to visit a variety of other sites, speeding up the design process. Users of the avnet-memec.eu site will also experience improved search functionality that provides auto-suggestion.

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Avnet Embedded, an Avnet, Inc. (NYSE:AVT) company, today announced that it has signed a European agreement covering 17 European countries with Option, the wireless technology company, for the distribution of its portfolio of embedded wireless products and the uCAN connection management software. The distribution agreement is effective immediately.

Serving customers, such as developers of electronic devices, in an array of industries, Avnet Embedded differentiates itself by offering expertise across a broad range of embedded solutions. As a value added distributor, the company has a specialist embedded wireless team that helps its customers select the right embedded solution for their needs, provides consulting and training services, while providing local support wherever its customers design or manufacture products.

Alastair Worth, marketing director Wireless and Networking at Avnet Embedded, commented on this appointment, “There is a growing need for HSPA 3G products amongst our customers. Our new relationship with Option allows us to fully address this requirement by adding its award winning full and half-size PCIe modules, LGA modules, boxed solutions and connection manager software suites to our comprehensive portfolio of connectivity solutions.”

Bernard Schaballie, General Manager Embedded Solutions at Option, “Avnet Embedded is a value-add distributor with strong experience in embedded solutions, an excellent reputation and strong logistics. Signing-up Avnet Embedded is part of Option’s strategy to further broaden its sales channels for the company’s broadband wireless solutions. We are currently providing their expert team with intensive training on our embedded wireless products so they can help their customers select the right solution, and are on-hand to provide technical assistance to get applications communicating wirelessly.”

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