Poing, 14 December 2011 – Avnet Memec, the highly specialized semiconductor distributor of Avnet Electronics Marketing EMEA, is kicking off 2012 with the first of four microcontroller development giveaways, each of which will offer the chance to bag one of 200 free starter kits for Energy Micro®’s innovative ARM® Cortex™-M devices.

The first promotion is for the Energy Micro Tiny Gecko Starter Kit (STK) supporting the ultra low-power EFM32 Tiny Gecko microcontroller. The kit allows a fast start to new designs by providing a ready-to-run evaluation board and software, as well as demonstration IP for exploring the device’s sensing and HMI features. With a segment LCD, user pushbutton, LED indicator and touch controls on board, the kit helps speed up completion of projects such as energy metering, sensing and automation, security monitoring and medical devices.

A free STK will be given to the first 200 visitors to register at www.avnet-memec.eu/geckotogo.

EFM32 Tiny Gecko microcontrollers combine a 32MHz ARM Cortex-M3 processor with innovative power-management and peripheral features to satisfy energy sensitive applications. The EFM32TG can maintain significant functionality, including displaying custom LCD animations, while in deep-sleep mode, but can wake extremely efficiently to resume full operation. The integrated Low Energy Sensor (LESENSE) module, Low Energy UART (LEUART) and Peripheral Reflex System (PRS) allow functions such as sensor monitoring, capacitive touch, UART communication and peripheral interactions such as timer-triggered ADC sampling to continue in deep sleep without CPU intervention.

Over the next nine months, Avnet Memec will hold a further three promotions, each giving away 200 kits for Energy Micro EFM32 Leopard Gecko and EFR32 RF-enhanced microcontrollers based on Cortex-M3, and the EFM32 Zero Gecko Cortex-M0 series.

In total, Energy Micro’s EDN China 2011 Innovation Award-winning EFM32 Gecko product range comprises more than 180 devices featuring ARM Cortex-M3 or Cortex-M0 processors. Avnet Memec supports the complete EFM32 portfolio throughout Europe as part of its distribution agreement with Energy Micro, and provides a high level of technical support to customers building energy-sensitive embedded computing solutions.

The new agreement between Mouser and Micrium is effective immediately and involves the global distribution of Micrium’s complete portfolio of RTOS, protocol stack and utility products, and development tools for embedded systems. Micrium’s flagship uC/OS family delivers engineers building microprocessor, microcontroller, and DSP-based devices outstanding reliability, performance, dependability, sound source code, and vast documentation. Going forward, Mouser gives customers across the map another channel for purchasing Micrium products and for obtaining localized embedded technical design support.

“This global distribution agreement with Micrium falls right in line with our business strategy to enhance Mouser’s value proposition by expanding our line card of leading technology suppliers as we aim to satisfy our customers’ design needs,” says Russell Rasor, Mouser Vice President of Advanced Technologies. “We are excited to be able to offer Micrium’s comprehensive development software to our customers in order to improve their speed-to-market. We look forward to a beneficial partnership.”
“We are extremely pleased to be working in partnership with Mouser, a leading distributor focused on supporting the many product needs of design engineers and buyers in the design stage,” expresses Jean Labrosse, President and CEO of Micrium. “We are impressed with the commitment Mouser brings to the table when it comes to satisfying the ever-evolving requirements of design engineers in embedded design.”

With its broad product line and unsurpassed customer service, Mouser caters to design engineers and buyers by delivering What’s Next in advanced semiconductor technologies and electrical components. Mouser offers customers 19 global support locations and the latest, most technologically advanced components for their 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.

Avnet Embedded, an Avnet, Inc. (NYSE:AVT) company, today announced that its franchise with Kontron, the global leader of embedded computing technology, has been further extended to include the UK. Kontron’s vast portfolio of embedded computing technology solutions is already represented by Avnet Embedded in France and the Nordic regions through longstanding relationships with Axess Technology and Trident, both Avnet Embedded businesses. This newly extended relationship will provide Avnet Embedded with access to Kontron’s entire range of embedded computing solutions broadening its offering to embedded designers throughout the UK. An agreement covering Italy was recently announced. The franchise agreement with Kontron is also covered globally including America through Avnet Electronics Marketing.

According to Jürgen Grabow, Vice President of EMEA Sales, Kontron, “This new agreement extends our relationship with Avnet Embedded to most of the major markets in Europe. Their energy, focus and customer-centric approach, based on strong technical know-how have been extremely productive in Italy, France and the Nordic region. Their UK team has demonstrated that they can replicate this performance.”

“We are very excited about this opportunity and hope to continue the success in the UK we have achieved with the Kontron products in France and the Nordics,” said Martin Brooks, vice president, Avnet Embedded. “Kontron is a key and strategic supplier of innovative world-class products for Avnet Embedded in Europe and this appointment shows that our relationship with them continues to grow and strengthen.”

Trident and Axess Technology received awards in Kontron’s annual sales partner meeting for their excellent performance in 2008.

» Contact details for Avnet Embedded

Mouser Electronics, Inc., known for its rapid introduction of the newest products, today announced it is the first to stock Freescale’s Tower System. Freescale is an industry leader in the design and manufacture of embedded semiconductors.

Freescale’s Tower System evaluates Freescale solutions with easy to use, modular, reconfigurable hardware. The interchangeable microcontroller and peripheral boards leverage standardized, open source hardware, making it simple to create customized plug-and-play development tools for all of your design needs. The first development kit (TWR-MCF51CN-KIT) in this new platform configuration includes the elevator module (TWR-ELEV) that provides all the power regulation and structural integrity for a complete Tower System, a modular development platform (TWR-MCF51CN) supporting the ColdFire® V1 MCF51CN128 Ethernet microcontroller and included complimentary MQX software, and a peripheral module (TWR-SER) to provide USB, Ethernet, CAN, and RS323 / 485 connectivity solutions. Additional microcontroller platforms are planned and will also be available from Mouser. For more information about Freescale’s Tower System, visit http://www.mouser.com/freescale_tower_system/.

“Mouser is excited to be the first to stock these latest Freescale development tools, again reiterating Mouser’s focus on progressively supporting the needs of the design engineering community,” stated Mike Scott, Mouser’s Vice President of Active Products.

» Contact details for Mouser Electronics, Inc.

Premier Farnell plc, the leading multi-channel, high service distributor supporting millions of engineers and purchasing professionals worldwide, announces Altium and EMA Design Automation™ have integrated Premier Farnell’s DesignLink, a new web service environment that provides an electronic interface to major Computer Aid Design (CAD) tools. DesignLink allows electronic designer engineers to immediately search and find parts from within their CAD design environment, without ever having to leave the program.

Altium Designer with DesignLink offers engineers the ability to check local prices and delivery as well as vital product attribute information. It will be available to customers globally. Users of Cadence’s OrCAD in the United States can now see similar information via EMA’s Component Information Portal (CIP), a bridge software to Cadence’s OrCAD tool.

The DesignLink Coupling Interface allows designers to take manufacturer’s data and use it directly in their schematic without additional research; it interfaces directly with Premier Farnell companies’ websites product data giving access to over 4,000,000 items from 3,500 leading manufacturers, all with data and pricing in local language and currencies.

“As we increase our focus on the needs of the global electronic design engineering segment, expand our online capability and continue to internationalise our business, DesignLink adds another innovative solution from Premier Farnell, which makes us a leading provider of product, information, software and services to meet the needs of our global customers,” said Harriet Green, CEO of Premier Farnell. “We are excited about DesignLink, and the value it will add for our engineering customers globally in the early product design phase. Like element14, our new online community, DesignLink will give our customers access to significant product data and information.”

“We are very pleased that Altium has embedded DesignLink into Altium Designer, allowing electronic design engineers to search instantly for information and products,” said Randall Restle, Director of Global Technical Marketing at Premier Farnell. “This new innovation will also allow engineers to find product availability, pricing and even new products for their designs without having to leave their design environment.”

Premier Farnell invites manufacturers of CAD tools to contact them to discuss how they too can implement the DesignLink interface with their design environment. Premier Farnell is rapidly increasing their global capability to interface with a wide range of different CAD platforms as they expand their support to meet the unique needs of their electronic design engineering customers.

» Contact Details for Premier Farnell

Electronic components distributor Digi-Key Corporation, recognized by design engineers as having the industry’s broadest selection of electronic components available for immediate shipment, and IAR Systems announced today that the companies have entered into an agreement for the distribution of IAR Systems development tools for embedded systems.

IAR Systems products stocked by Digi-Key include:

* IAR Embedded Workbench® – a set of highly sophisticated and easy-to-use development tools for embedded applications. It integrates the IAR C/C++ Compiler™, assembler, linker, librarian, text editor, project manager, and C-SPY® Debugger into an integrated development environment.
* IAR PowerPac™ – an integrated middleware toolset for designing embedded applications. This toolset contains a fully featured, real-time operating (RTOS) and a high-performance file system, which is highly optimized for minimum memory consumption in both RAM and ROM. IAR PowerPac is the perfect complement to IAR Embedded Workshop.
* IAR KickStart Kit for STM32 and IAR KickStart Kit for LPC2478 – all the hardware and software needed to design, develop, integrate, and test your application.
* IAR J-Link – a small USB-JTAG/SWD debug probe.

These products are featured in Digi-Key’s print and online catalogs and are available for purchase via Digi-Key’s global websites.

Dave Doherty, Digi-Key vice president, semiconductor product, said, “We are very pleased to partner with IAR Systems and make its flexible, easy-to-use, and powerful development tools available to the embedded engineers who look to Digi-Key for not only leading-edge technologies but products that will make their jobs easier as well.”

Andreas Lifvendahl, IAR Systems sales & marketing director, said, “With its strong market presence in distributing electronic components, Digi-Key is an ideal partner for IAR Systems in our ambition to provide professional development tools for the embedded market. I believe this will be a very fruitful partnership for both companies.”

» Contact Details for Digi-Key Corporation