Acal BFi has been awarded a Performance Excellence Award for Best Product Line Performer 2011 for RF and Fibre Optic products by Avago Technologies.

“Performance Excellence Awards are given only in recognition of exceptional achievement and Acal BFi has earned this award by maintaining three consecutive years of high growth against a back-drop of a difficult and highly competitive market place,” explains Stephanie Kircher, Avago Technologies’ director of distribution, Europe. “The foundations of this growth are based on the strong relationship which exists between Acal BFi and Avago Technologies through which we have been able to nurture and support our end-customers through challenging times.”

“The specialist support provided by Acal BFi has been crucial in enabling leading customers to implement designs using Avago’s disruptive FBAR technology as well as the emerging and innovative WaferCap technologies,” explains Lee Austin, business development director for Acal BFi’s communications division. “By engaging deeply with lead customers, Acal BFi provides a conduit through which customers can feed back their design wish-lists and effectively influence the future direction of Avago’s new products and technologies.”

Acal BFi has provided specialist design support on Avago Technologies’ products to customers in applications which include automotive, test and measurement and communication infrastructure.

Paul Webster, UK managing director, Acal BFi, adds; “Acal BFi’s specialist distribution model allows us to engage with customers from concept to production, touching every aspect of design, procurement, operations, production and contract manufacturing to provide end-to-end service and support.”

The Performance Excellence Award was presented by Avago’s Stephanie Kircher to Lee Austin of Acal BFi’s communications division, at a recent Gala Dinner held by Avago Technologies in Munich.

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Premier Farnell plc today announced that it has signed a global distribution deal with Wamco Lighting, the global leader in lighting components and materials technologies for light management.

Wamco offers advanced light sciences, NVIS materials, optical filters, and lighting solutions and components. The company has solutions for the military, defense, aerospace, and transportation industries, which will now enable Premier Farnell to offer a broad selection of products to its worldwide customer base. Customers will also have access to a broad range of Wamco Lighting’s full line of LED lamps (MR, PAR, Luninars), Miniature/Subminiature LED Replacement lamps, Fluorescent (T5) lamps, and Panel Mount indicators (incandescent, Neon, and LED) across all of Premier Farnell’s operating businesses of Farnell element14 (Europe), Newark element14 (USA) and element14 (Asia-Pacific).

“Our partnership with Wamco Lighting reflects our commitment to offering the latest innovations in the lighting and illumination space,” said Mike Buffham, Director of Product and EDE at Premier Farnell. “With this new agreement our global customers will benefit from a breadth of “Green” Solutions with access to related discussions, product-related technical information and collaboration with like-minded peers around optoelectronics at the online element14 community.”

With more than 40 years of expertise and experience in design and manufacturing in the lighting industry, Wamco serves a demanding, best-in-class customer base world-wide. All Wamco products are manufactured to the highest standards and offer proven reliability.

“By offering Wamco’s breadth of LED lighting products, Premier Farnell is providing its customer base with high quality energy efficient lighting solutions in a rapidly changing lighting market.” said Paul Flynn, VP of Lighting, Wamco.

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MSC now offers two new high-speed optocouplers, the PS9123 and the PS9324, from Renesas Electronics. The new optocouplers feature a high communication bandwidth of 10 Mbit/s, a maximum isolation voltage of 5 kVrms and an extended operating temperature range from -40°C to +100°C for the PS9123 series and up to 110°C for the PS9324 series.

The PS9324 series has an open collector output and the maximum propagation delay time is specified as 75 ns at 25°C. The PS9123 series comes with a totem pole output, offering shorter propagation delay times as low as 65 ns at 25°C. The maximum pulse width distortion |tPHL tPLH| is less than 35 ns for the PS9324 series and less than 50 ns for the PS9123 series.

Furthermore, for operation in noisy industrial environments, the new high-performance optocouplers have an internal shield providing a common-mode transient immunity (CMTI) of minimum 15 kV/µs and typical values of 20 kV/µs.

The PS9324 optocouplers come in a small 6-pin shrink dual inline package (SDIP). The small package reduces the mounting space by 50 percent compared to a conventional 8-pin DIP package while guaranteeing a maximum isolation voltage of 5 kVrms and achieving a minimum creepage current distance of 8 mm (PS9324L2). The PS9123 is delivered in a 5-pin small outline package (SOP), allowing space saving designs.

The PS9123 series and the PS9324 series are optically-coupled high-speed isolators containing an integrated signal processing circuit and can be operated from a 2.7 V to 5.5 V supply voltage. Furthermore, the new devices comply with international safety standards such as UL, CSA and VDE (optional), making them ideally suited for applications in harsh industrial environments such as factory automation, measurement equipment and motor-control.

Samples of the new PS9123 and PS9324 series of optocouplers are available now.

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With the new PS9402 Rutronik offers the first intelligent IGBT (integrated insulated gate bipolar transistor) drive optocoupler with integrated IGBT protection functions from Renesas. The PS9402 comprises a gallium-aluminum-arsenide (GaAlAs) LED as the light emitting element and a light receiving IC. It is designed to drive IGBTs used in inverter devices for purposes such as motor control or solar power conversion.

The PS9402 simplifies system design and contributes to greater compactness by integrating the protection circuit that previously had to be added as an external component. The integrated IGBT protection circuit providing functionality such as under voltage lock out protection with hysteresis, desaturation detection and soft turn-off function, fault feedback and auto-reset function and an Active Miller clamp circuit. Its 16-pin SOP package has 8mm outer creepage distance and 8mm air distance. Other key features of the IGBT drive optocoupler are an output currents of 2.5A (max) and 2A (min), high Speed switching (tpHL , tpLH ≤ 200 ns), reduced supply current of 3mA (max), high common mode rejection (CMR) of 25kV/μs (min) and an extended operating temperature range of -40 to 110 degC.

It is conform with the safety standards UL, CSA, DIN-EN 60747-5-2 (VDE 0884 part 2) and is compatible to ACPL-332J.

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Digi-Key Corporation and Marktech Optoelectronics today announced the two companies have signed a global distribution agreement.

Marktech Optoelectronics is an industry leader in LED technology, products and solutions. Marktech has been involved in many high-end, high-profile projects and serves several markets including Aerospace and Defense, Medical Technology, Industrial Manufacturing and Robotics, and Sign and Signal.

“Marktech’s status as a leader in the application of LED and Photo Sensing component solutions will provide Digi-Key and its customers with a competitive edge in the market,” said Mark Zack, Digi-Key’s vice president of semiconductor product. “We look forward to developing a successful business partnership with the Marktech team.”

“Marktech is excited to work closely with Digi-Key as our strategic partner,” stated William Moore, executive vice president of Marktech Optoelectronics. “Digi-Key’s unparalleled level of service along with Marktech’s 26 years of providing optoelectronic solutions will allow engineers to quickly achieve their design goals.”
Marktech products are available for purchase now on Digi-Key’s global websites.

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QuasarBrite UV LEDs outshine CCFLs–offering longer lifespan, superior light performance, 50% cost savings, up to 70% energy consumption savings

Newark, a leading multi-channel, high-service electronics distributor in the Americas, announced today it was stocking the newest QuasarBrite™ UV LED technologies from Lumex, which include three new standard wavelengths.

Lumex states that QuasarBrite UV LEDs provide up to 10 times longer lifespan, up to 50% cost savings, up to 70% energy consumption savings and superior light performance, as compared to alternative technologies like CCFLs.

The RoHS compliant QuasarBrite UV LEDs are now available for same day shipping in standard 355nm (SSL-LXTO46355C), 365nm (SSL-LXTO46365C) and 377nm (SSL-LXTO46375C) wavelengths in a through-hole format. They are ideally suited for a wide range of applications including:

security (counterfeit detection for currency, passports and other travel documents)

forensic (applications related to forensic analysis of bodily fluids)

photo catalyst (for air and water purifier applications in homes, offices and automobiles)

“Previously, widespread use of UV LED technology, especially in the shorter UV wavelengths, was hindered because the materials used in the epoxy LED lens degraded the lifespan of UV LEDs to less than 5,000 hours,” explained Kay Fernandez, Product Technology Manager, Lumex. “Recent technological developments have allowed the epoxy lenses to be replaced by a robust TO-46 package with a glass lens, making it possible for QuasarBrite UVs to last 10 times longer- with life spans of over 50,000 hours.”

“Innovations like these represent our continued commitment to stock the latest technology products for design engineers,” commented Jeff Uden, VP, Product Marketing, Newark. “It will be exciting to see how many uses designers will find for the shorter UV LED wavelengths.”

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Electronic components distributor Digi-Key Corporation, recognized by design engineers as having the industry’s broadest selection of electronic components available for immediate shipment, today announced a partnership with Cree, Molex, and RECOM to offer an all-in-one, LED lighting solution based on the Cree XLamp platform.

The Digi-Key CXA2011 XLamp LED lighting kit combines the performance, ease-of-use, and reliability of the XLamp series of LED arrays into a simple, all-in-one solution that takes the mystery out of building LED light fixtures. Digi-Key encourages LED design by offering all the necessary components, including a heat sink, connectors, power supply, and LED array, in a convenient, flexible kit.

“We are excited to partner with Cree, Molex and RECOM in offering this all-in-one LED solution,” said Mark Zack, vice president, semiconductor product, Digi-Key Corporation. “We have accentuated simplicity and flexibility in this kit allowing quick demonstrations, shorter design cycles and making LED utilization more accessible.”

Streamlining the process even further, Digi-Key has created a step-by-step video as part of its Another Geek Moment series on YouTube. The video details just how easy this kit is to assemble with only a screwdriver and the provided components.

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Design-Fulfillment Distributor is Positioned to Deliver Greatest Lineup of Lighting Solutions

Mouser Electronics, Inc., a top design engineering resource and global distributor for semiconductors and electronic components, today announced that it has signed a global distribution agreement with Cree, a worldwide leader in LED lighting and silicon carbide (SiC) power products.

The global agreement enables lighting designers worldwide to quickly find, compare, select, and order Cree’s latest products, including their innovative line of lighting-class XLamp® LEDs, high brightness LEDs, LED modules, and power products. Cree LED components and solutions are driving improvements worldwide in applications such as general lighting, electronic signs and signals. Cree also is among the world’s leading manufacturers of silicon carbide-based diodes for power control and management, providing increased efficiency in a variety of applications from solar inverters to industrial motor drivers to wireless technologies. Cree gains access to Mouser’s highly-successful design engineering marketing programs and to Mouser’s state-of-the-art fulfillment operations. The award-winning distributor offers 17 customer support locations across multiple continents with 42 country websites. Mouser’s Product Knowledge Centers and application guidance tools will give lighting designers easy access to view Cree’s product advantages, technical specifications and data sheets.

“Cree is a progressive company known for top-of-the-line innovations in the LED industry and we are pleased to align with them,” says Russell Rasor, Mouser’s vice-president of advanced technology. “For design engineers and manufacturers, this means faster access to Cree’s LED lighting solutions and SiC power products on a global basis.” “With the distribution might of Mouser behind our products, our customers will not only have worldwide access to our products, but will also have the search and comparison resources available through Mouser’s award-winning online catalogs and websites,” says Mark Despotes, Cree vice president of global channels.

“The service and support Mouser offers as an authorized worldwide distributor is invaluable to us and to our customers.” The agreement reinforces Mouser’s commitment to support new solid-state lighting designs by offering a comprehensive lineup of Cree LED components. In support of Cree’s products, Mouser will provide engineers with the most innovative optical and mechanical products along with IC-based LED drivers from key suppliers such as Texas Instruments, On Semiconductor, STMicroelectronics and Maxim Integrated Products. This strategically positions Mouser, the design-fulfillment distributor, to deliver advanced lighting technology components to enable a successful new design project.

» Contact details for Mouser Electronics, Inc.

Mouser Electronics, Inc., a leading design engineering resource and global distributor for semiconductors and electronic components, today announces the European expansion of its agreement with OSRAM Opto Semiconductors.

The extended distribution partnership further strengthens Mouser’s European line card by providing customers with OSRAM Opto Semiconductors’ extensive portfolio of high-performance LEDs for diverse applications. The expansion, agreed upon at the recent Embedded World Show in Germany, fits Mouser’s strategic emphasis on supplying innovative solutions to design engineers and small production buyers.

“We are pleased to now offer European design engineers the highly innovative lighting solutions from OSRAM Opto Semiconductors,” says Mark Burr-Lonnon, Mouser Vice President of EMEA and APAC Business. “OSRAM Opto Semiconductors is known as world leader in the production of LED and IRED products. They pride themselves in having trend-setting technologies that are shaping the future of lighting. Both our existing and new customers will benefit greatly from this expanded agreement.”

“We have enjoyed great success with Mouser as our catalogue distributor in America, Canada and Mexico and are excited about broadening our business together in Europe. With our corporate culture focused on innovation, we support Mouser’s strategy of being the one-stop source for design engineers and small production buyers. It fits our own company’s mission of lighting the future,” emphasizes Stephan Kreusel, Director Distribution Europe and Emerging Markets for OSRAM Opto Semiconductors.

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Digi-Key Corporation, recognized by design engineers as having the industry’s broadest selection of electronic components available for immediate shipment, today announced it has stock of Cree-based printed circuit board (PCB) LED development kits, often referred to as star boards.

These kits, also known as star boards, are designed to simplify LED ease-of-use. PCB development kits, when combined with thermal heat sinks, can shorten time-to-market by forming the foundation for LED designs. PCB configurations are available for Cree XLamp XR-E, XR-C, XP-G, XP-E, XP-C, MX-6, and MC-E LEDs.

To search for these PCB development kits on Digi-Key’s website, enter the search term “digi-key cree” into Digi-Key’s part search bar and click on “LEDs – High Brightness Power Modules” under the “Optoelectronics” heading in the search results. From there, a filtered search may be performed for the particular PCB development kits needed.

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