Industry-leading power-efficiency enabling ecological design

RS Components is pleased to announce the further expansion of its Energy-Efficient Solutions range and its launch into additional European markets.

The latest products include power-supply switcher ICs, microcontrollers with NanoWatt technology from Microchip and AMOLED displays, which can reduce the overall energy consumption of an end-product by up to 90% in comparison with conventional designs.

Following the success of this range in the UK, France, Germany and Italy, RS is launching the Energy-Efficiency Solutions range across Spain, Austria, Scandinavia and Ireland.

“We are committed to developing our Energy-Efficient Solutions range to help our customers adopt next-generation technologies which dramatically reduce energy consumption, drive cost-savings and help achieve a low-carbon economy,” explained Chris Page, General Manager of Electronics at RS.

Consumers worldwide now demand products with a lower cost of ownership, extended lifetime and smaller carbon footprint, and engineers are focusing on reducing the power their designs consume. The Energy-Efficient Solutions range allows design engineers to select from over 2,000 of the latest products with best-in-class power-efficiency. By providing all the latest systems, modules and components for a complete solution in one place, RS is helping engineers increase the speed of their designs to market.

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RS Components launches web-based Microchip Resource Centre

RS Components and Microchip Technology, a leading supplier of microcontroller semiconductors, are pleased to announce the launch of a web-based Microchip Resource Centre.

The Centre provides a quick and easy route for customers to gain the latest information on the Microchip products that are available through RS. Using techniques that include demonstration videos and software downloads, customers can access information on design options for motor control applications, learn about Microchip’s most powerful microcontroller – the PIC32, design QVGA applications for the PIC24F, discover Capacitive mTouch™ Sensing Solutions as well as enrol on workshops.

Mike McGlade, Sales Channel Manager at Microchip commented: “Microchip is delighted to be working with RS in the development of this online Centre. It is important to Microchip that key technologies and resources are highlighted to the widest customer base possible. We have no doubt that many customers will book workshops, download videos and purchase products as a result of this new facility.”

Keeping customers up-to-date with new developments has always been important to RS: “This Centre provides RS’ customers with our Microchip offer, online, in one easy place. It‘s designed to add value by offering extra information above the usual datasheet and standard feature lists, such as additional video and software links to help customers get started. These include topics on touch-screen displays and developing brushless motor control. The new Centre won’t stand still either, with further developments planned on USB and the new ‘K’ series microprocessor range,” commented Marcus Goad, Product Manager at RS.

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Mouser Electronics Receives Outstanding Sales Achievement Award from Microchip Technology

Mouser Electronics, Inc., known for its rapid introduction of the newest products, today announced it has received an award for Outstanding Sales Achievement for 2008 from Microchip Technology, a leading manufacturer of microcontroller and analog products.

Mouser’s sales achievement was a direct result of the cooperative, collaborative relationship between Mouser and Microchip. Microchip’s continuous release of new products, combined with Mouser’s ability to rapidly launch new products via the web and its quarterly catalog, allowed immediate product availability to the design engineering community. The resulting response from buyers was overwhelming and led to record breaking sales numbers. While Mouser’s 2008 sales increased 84%, even more impressive is that Mouser’s Microchip customer base increased 250% over 2007.

Glenn Smith, President and CEO of Mouser, states “The entire Mouser team proudly accepts this award from Microchip. This great achievement is indicative of Mouser’s commitment to become the world’s most preferred source of components for the electronics design engineer and a confirmation of Mouser’s promise to provide the latest, newest products and technologies as quickly as possible.”

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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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Mouser Electronics Now Stocking Microchip Technology’s PIC32 Family of 32-bit Microcontrollers (MCUs)

Mouser Electronics, Inc., known for its rapid availability and introduction of the newest products, today announced it is stocking the PIC32 family of 32-bit microcontrollers (MCUs) from Microchip Technology, a leading supplier of microcontroller and analog semiconductors.

“Our engineering customers require both rapid introduction of the newest products and technologies, as well as a broad selection of products and suppliers in order to select the best solution for their design projects,” said Mike Scott, Mouser’s Vice President of Active Products. “By stocking Microchip’s PIC32 MCUs, and through our innovative marketing programs, we are able to quickly introduce these new devices to our extensive engineering customer base.”

The PIC32 family adds more performance and memory, while maintaining pin, peripheral, and software compatibility with Microchip’s 16-bit PIC® MCUs and dsPIC® Digital Signal Controllers (DSCs). To further ease migration and protect tool investments, the PIC32 family is fully supported by Microchip’s free MPLAB® Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The MPLAB IDE offers unprecedented compatibility by supporting Microchip’s complete portfolio of 8-, 16- and 32-bit devices.

The PIC32 family consists of ten general-purpose devices that operate at up to 80 MHz, and offer ample code- and data-space capabilities, with up to 512 KB Flash and 32 KB RAM. The family also includes a rich set of integrated peripherals, significantly reducing total design complexity and cost.

The devices are based on the MIPS32® architecture with its leading combination of high-performance, low power consumption, fast interrupt response, and extensive industry tool support. The high-performance MIPS32 M4K® core can achieve best-in-class 1.5 DMIPS/MHz operation, due to its efficient instruction-set architecture, 5-stage pipeline, hardware multiply/accumulate unit, and multiple sets of 32 core registers. To reduce systems costs, the PIC32 MCUs support the MIPS16e™ 16-bit ISA, enabling code-size reductions of up to 40%.

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