ON Semiconductor has announced its top 2011 distribution partners. These awards honor the distributor in each region that led overall channel sales, grew market share, captured increased sales of products from acquisitions made by ON Semiconductor, and scored high on overall process excellence.

The 2011 awards are as follows:
• Arrow Electronics: Leading Distribution Partner for the Americas
• Arrow Electronics: Leading Distribution Partner for Europe
• Yosun: Leading Distribution Partner for China
• World Peace International: Leading Distribution Partner for Taiwan
• Uniquest: Leading Distribution Partner for Korea
• Arrow Electronics: Leading Distribution Partner for Southeast Asia
• Yosun: Leading Distribution Partner for India
• Mouser Electronics: Leading Global Distribution Partner for New Product Introduction

“Distribution sales accounted for approximately 36 percent of ON Semiconductor’s 2011 annual revenues and are expected to continue to grow,” said Jeff Thomson, vice president of Global Channel Sales for ON Semiconductor. “The ongoing market penetration and overall product revenue growth of the company continue to be highly dependent on the collaborative working relationships and unique channel sales programs we have fostered with our worldwide distribution partners. Each of the 2011 award winners successfully grew product sales, generated significant new business, and effectively supported both our customers’ needs and ON Semiconductor’s initiatives for operational excellence. ON Semiconductor is pleased to recognize these outstanding channel partners for their valuable contributions throughout 2011.”

The Oslon Square, OSRAM Opto Semiconductors’ new LED, offers a wide range of possible uses, including designer luminaires for the home or office, retrofits and street lights.
The LED is available in many different versions with different color temperatures. It can be operated with different currents, making it extremely versatile. Its reflective package makes even better use of the light and increases system efficiency in all versions. The Oslon Square is available at distributor Rutronik now.

The Oslon Square measures only 3mm x 3 mm, has a low thermal resistance of 4K/W to 3.8 K/W and is accommodated in a robust package which is suitable for outdoor use. The LED chip is enclosed by a reflective package that reflects light emitted at the side or at the back so that this light is usable. The Oslon Square EC is suitable for indoor applications in which a high quality of light is needed, for example in offices. With a color temperature of 3000K it provides a warm white light and also offers high color stability over a wide viewing angle (120°). The CRI is at least 80.
If the lighting needs to be particularly uniform a “fine-bin” order can be placed for this LED. At an operating current of 700mA it achieves an efficiency of above 90lm/W and a luminous flux of 200lm and more. At 350mA its efficiency passes the 100lm/W mark. The EC version is also suitable for retrofits. Thanks to its small dimensions it can be closely clustered and, like all the LEDs in this series, it benefits from its reflective package, both individually and within a system.

The Oslon Square PC and UW are designed for outdoor applications, i.e. in street lighting. They can be operated on currents of 200mA to 1.5A, making them interesting for other applications such as downlights and spotlights. The LEDs produce a neutral white to cold white light with color temperatures of 4000K and 6000K. And at 130lm/W from 350mA they are even more efficient than the warm white version. With a CRI of at least 70 (4000K) and 65 (6000K) these LEDs combine good quality of light with high efficiency.

» Contact Details for Rutronik

element14 has teamed up with Microchip and Matrix to introduce the new PIC18 Flowcode Developers Kit. This innovative development and demonstration kit is designed to offer a hands-on, easy approach to electronics design using Flowcode, one of the world’s most advanced graphical programming languages for microcontrollers.

The development platform is based on a Microchip PIC18F26J50 low power, 8-bit PIC18F26J50 microcontroller, and is integrated with temperature sensor, capacitor touch sensor and potentiometer to help developers verify programs designed using Flowcode.

“The new PIC18 Flowcode Developers Kit is an innovative, fully featured yet low cost solution designed to help developers realise their designs in working hardware,” says Mike Powell, Technology Development Manager, Premier Farnell. “Optimised for Flowcode development, the board has several expansion options, it can be used as a black box and is mounted with a PIC 18 device that is low power, but high performance.

The competitive advantage of Flowcode is that it allows those with little-to-no programming experience to create electronic systems in minutes. Flowcode supports code generation for the PIC® (PIC12, PIC16, and PIC18 series ), PIC24 and dsPIC® series of microcontrollers. The professional edition includes drivers for a range of sub-systems including LCDs, keypads, seven-segment displays, ADC and PWM, as well as communication protocols including I2C, SPI, RS-232RS-232, Zigbee and TCP/IP, among others.

Flowcode is compatible with Microchip’s PICkit programmer as well as third party programmers. It is also compatible with the HI-TECH C compiler. A ‘Lite’ version of Flowcode 4 is included in the kit.

For more information visit element14.

» Contact details for Farnell

Connector supplier HARTING Ltd. has appointed Northern Connectors Ltd. of St. Helens, Merseyside, as its Specialist Distributor of the Year for 2011.

Commenting on the award, Jane Bacon, Electronic Distribution Manager for HARTING, said: “Northern Connectors have had another excellent year in developing their HARTING business in the UK. Their commitment to offering customers the highest level of service and technical support has been a key factor in their success.”

“Northern Connectors’ continued efforts at the design-in stage have increased their customer base for HARTING and stand them in good stead for continued growth going forward”, she added: “I congratulate them on receiving this award.”

Anglia has been appointed as 2011 Broadline Distributor of the Year by HARTING Ltd., the UK operation of Europe’s leading manufacturer of electronics and electrical connectors.

Anglia, based in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, is the UK’s leading independent authorised distributor of semiconductors, optoelectronics, connectors, and passive and electromechanical components. A signatory of the ADS SC21 programme, the company holds AS9120, ISO9001 and ISO14001 accreditations and IECQ-CECC qualification.

Commenting on Anglia’s success, Jane Bacon, Electronic Distribution Manager for HARTING, said: “This award is in recognition of the efforts of the whole team at Anglia. The UK electronics market in 2011 has offered strong growth opportunities coupled with lead-time challenges, and Anglia’s focus on high levels of customer service, technical support and a willingness to commit to stock has enabled them to maximise the opportunities on offer.”

» Contact details for Anglia Components Limited

Targeted at 10/100 Ethernet applications, the new PIC32 Multimedia Developers Kit from element14, the first collaborative global electronics community from Premier Farnell plc (LSE:pfl), and Microchip, offers comprehensive design software support for rapid evaluation and engineering development projects. Available to element14 customers from 23 January, the new development kit is offered at an exclusive price for a two month period.

Optimised for multimedia applications such as audio, graphics and touch screen development, the kit features a PIC32 Ethernet Starter Kit and Multimedia Expansion Board (MEB). By inserting the Starter Kit into the MEB a powerful development tool is created with extra functionality provided by a PICTail™ socket that offers access to additional I/O. A free-to-download version of Microchip’s MPLAB PIC32 C compiler provides code development support.

“The combination of the PIC32 Ethernet Starter Kit and MEB at this special price provides a low risk/ yet powerful platform for engineers of all grades to rapidly evaluate the potential of Microchip’s PIC32 MCUs”, said Mike McGlade Channel Manager for Microchip. “Microchip welcomes the development of this kit.”

Ethernet-based projects will be up and running in no time using the combination of PIC32 Ethernet Starter Kit and Microchip’s free TCP/IP software. Among its many features, the PIC32 has an available CAN 2.0b peripheral and USB host/device/OTG, while the Ethernet Starter Kit offers a form factor and expansion connector that is compatible with other PIC32 starter kits.

There are also several notable features of the Multimedia Expansion Board, which provides PIC32 starter kit users with an integrated yet flexible solution for the development of high impact user interfaces. The board comes with a 3.2 Colour TFT touch-screen QVGA display, onboard FCC certified WiFi module, 24-bit stereo audio code, three-axis accelerometer, joystick and MicroSD memory card slot. Simply connect the PIC32 Ethernet Starter Kit to the Multimedia Expansion Board and it’s possible to commence developing, programming and debugging code for the user interface features.

Further information can be found at element14.com

» Contact details for Farnell

Solid State Supplies announces availability of a new family of ARM Cortex-M3 based microcontrollers from Energy Micro. The EFM32 Gecko product range has been expanded to include 100 new low power devices. Memory configurations up to 1MB are available, package choice has been expanded and there are connectivity, display driving and energy saving options. Some devices also have 3 on-chip op-amps to reduce external component count.

New package options include QFN64, QFP100, BGA112, QFP64 and 7 x 7mm small form factor BGA120.

Connectivity now includes a full speed USB 2.0 port on Leopard and Giant devices, with an integral 3.3V regulator to facilitate powering the microcontroller over USB. Communications interfaces include Energy Micro’s Low Energy UART, which consumes just 150nA at 9600 baud.

The LESENSE function from the Tiny Gecko family is added to Leopard Gecko and Giant Gecko families to enable monitoring of up to 16 capacitive, inductive or resistive sensors. Monitoring is independent of the processor core when the MCU is in sub-microamp deep sleep mode.

EFM32 Gecko microcontrollers are capable of active mode current consumption of 160µA/MHz, a deep sleep mode with RTC running at 400nA, a shut-off mode with GPIO wake-up consuming 20nA, and wake-up time from sleep modes down to 2 µs.

A range of development kits is also available from Solid State Supplies.

» Contact Details for Solid State Supplies

Mouser Electronics, Inc., regarded as a top design engineering resource and global distributor for semiconductors and electronic components, today announced the availability of Murata’s AMR (Anisotropic Magneto Resistance) Magnetic Switch Sensors. These robust switch sensors, which are being featured by Murata at this week’s CES event in Las Vegas, set a new standard for reliability, sensitivity, and detection area.

Murata’s AMR Magnetic Switch Sensors are non-contact magnetic sensors of high sensitivity for use in a relatively low magnetic field in either a vertical or horizontal direction. With no mechanical components, AMR sensors are more reliable and robust than Hall Effect IC’s or reed switches. Murata’s AMR Sensors are ideal for open/close applications such as mobile phones and notebook PC’s, as well as in consumer white goods, industrial and security equipment. A wide range of sensitivities are available.

With its broad product line and unsurpassed customer service, Mouser caters to design engineers and buyers by delivering What’s Next in advanced technologies. Mouser offers customers 19 global support locations and stocks the world’s widest selection of the latest semiconductors and electronic components for the newest design projects. Mouser Electronics’ website is updated daily and searches more than 8 million products to locate over 2 million orderable part numbers available for easy online purchase. Mouser.com also houses an industry-first interactive catalog, data sheets, supplier-specific reference designs, application notes, technical design information, and engineering tools.

» Contact details for Mouser Electronics, Inc.

MSC offers the RL78/G14 Group of microcontrollers (MCUs) from Renesas Electronics. The new 16-bit MCUs with enhanced real-time control functions incorporate proven on-chip peripheral functions of Renesas’ R8C MCU family and feature a current consumption of only 70 µA/MHz at 32 MHz.

Among other things, the new MCUs — which MSC will present at embedded world 2012, Nuremberg in Hall 2, Booth 2-219 from February 28 to March 1, 2012 — are equipped with three proven timer modules, which are compatible with timers that already exist in the R8C MCU family. Timer RD comprises two universal 16-bit timers capable of operating at up to 64 MHz, which thanks to their three-phase complementary pulse width modulation (PWM) function are ideal for motor control applications. Timer RG is additionally equipped with an encoder input with which direction of rotation and rotation speed can be measured. Timer RJ is also a 16-bit timer module than can generate pulses or measure pulse widths.

The RL78/G14 MCU devices integrate a data transfer controller (DTC) and event link controller (ELC), which significantly reduce the CPU load and lower current consumption. The DTC enables memory-to-memory data transfers without using the CPU. Compared to the DMA function of the RL78/G13 device, the DTC supports a larger number of transfer channels and activation sources. Furthermore, it also enables data transfers from the flash memory. The event link controller (ELC) allows direct connection between individual peripheral functions bypassing the CPU and interrupt controller. It is also possible to use the ELC to start peripheral functions when the CPU is stopped, thereby reducing current consumption of the new 16-bit MCUs even further.

In addition, among the technical features of the RL78/G14 MCUs are an 8-bit D/A converter (DAC) with two channels and two analog comparators with window function, which is already well-known from the R8C family of MCUs. The DAC can, among other things, be utilized to implement an audio playback function or to generate high-resolution voltage signals.

Through additional multiply, divide, and multiply and accumulate CPU instructions, the need to handle overflow interrupts when performing arithmetic operations is eliminated with the RL78/G14 MCUs. Furthermore, the on-chip debugging functions of the new MCUs now also support trace data for up to 256 branches, enabling more efficient system development and evaluation.

The new MCUs are available in flash ROM capacities ranging from 16 KB to 256 KB, RAM capacities from 2.5 KB to 24 KB and a total of 17 package configurations, including Quad Flat Package (QFP), compact Quad Flat Non-Leaded (QFN) package and Land Grid Array (LGA) package, with pin counts from 30 to 100 pins.

Development tools for the RL78/G14 Group include the IAR Embedded Workbench, Renesas’ E1 integrated on-chip debugging emulator and IECUBE full-function in-circuit emulator. Renesas also plans to release a Flash Programmer and Renesas Starter Kit (RSK) supporting these new MCUs.

Harwin has named Digi-Key’s Corporation’s Dustin Jarshaw as the recipient of the company’s prestigious Chairman’s Award. As Product Manager, Jarshaw is responsible for developing Harwin sales at Digi-Key, the leading high service distributor and during the first year, sales have grown at an unsurpassed rate all around the world.

Commented Damon de Laszlo, Chairman Harwin plc: “Distributors such as Digi-Key play an important role in supporting design engineers as they develop new products. Therefore it is vital that we have an excellent relationship with our partners as we open up new markets for our high-reliability connectors and cost-saving PCB boardware products. Dustin has been highly influential in establishing our business through Digi-Key. He has been our product manager since launch and his drive and determination has seen Harwin rapidly climb Digi-Key’s connector supplier rankings. Digi-Key now includes a significant number of our products in their portfolio, all supported by deep technical training resources on-line. I am therefore delighted to present him with our Chairman’s Award for 2011.”

Jarshaw added: “It is an honour to receive this Award which I accept on behalf of the whole team at Digi-Key. Harwin is an important supplier for Digi-Key, providing our customers with commercially-priced yet very high performance connector products.”

» Contact Details for Digi-Key Corporation