RS Components has launched an exclusive promotion on its range of oscilloscopes from Tektronix, a leading supplier of test, measurement and monitoring instrumentation. The special offer enables RS customers to trade-in a working oscilloscope, signal generator or frequency/counter timer from any manufacturer and receive a 15% discount on a new model from the Tektronix range.

Available for a limited period until 31 May 2012, the trade-in scheme provides embedded system designers with a cost-efficient means of upgrading their test equipment with the latest generation of high-performance products from an industry-leading manufacturer.

Tektronix offers a comprehensive range of test and measurement instruments and application software to quickly find and diagnose problems in complex designs. The MSO3000 Series and DPO3000 Mixed Signal Oscilloscopes Series, for example, allow users to analyse up to 20 analogue and digital signals with a single instrument. Bandwidths up to 500 MHz and a minimum of 5 times over sampling on all channels ensure the performance necessary for many of today’s mainstream applications.

“Today’s engineers are under pressure to meet increasingly demanding deadlines while getting to grips with ever more complex technologies. Tektronix’s intuitive tools for device design validation and debug play a significant role in easing the process by producing fast, intelligent results,” said Fred Knowles, Head of Product Management – Electronics at RS Components. “This exclusive offer gives engineers access to the most sophisticated equipment available on the market at cut-down prices and exemplifies RS’ value-for-money electronics offering as well as our commitment to maintaining strong relationships with suppliers and customers alike.”

“It is clear that the provision of a value-added service is a priority for RS. As a supplier, we can feel confident that our customers will have a highly efficient purchasing experience through RS’ ongoing find, design-in and buy initiatives,” Nigel Bentley, Channel Partner Manager, Tektronix, added. “By partnering with RS for this offer we are highlighting the most advanced test and measurement equipment available to engineers, while giving them the opportunity to replace old equipment at significantly reduced prices.”

Further information on this exclusive offer is available at http://www.rs-components.com/tektronix-recycle

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Telonic Instruments Ltd launch Rigol’s new DG4000 series waveform generators, the latest development in their family of fast, intuitive, modern test and measurement instruments. A function/arbitrary waveform generator, the DG4000 features 2 output channels with up to 160 MHz output, 14 bit voltage resolution, a 500 MSa/s sample rate, a high resolution 7″ display and 130 built-in waveforms.

Rigol’s DG4000 series helps engineers accomplish a ranging of testing by combining many functions into one easy-to-use instrument. Functions include Arbitrary Waveform Generator, Function Generator, Pulse Generator, Harmonic Generator, and Analogue/Digital Modulator. The DG4000 series also incorporates Rigol’s Direct Digital Synthesizer (DDS) technology, ensuring signals are delivered with stability, precision, purity and low distortion.

Designed to target the requirements of R&D engineers, production test engineers’ and universities, Rigol’s DG4000 series is ideal for applications in the communications, aerospace/defence, research and education, industrial and consumer electronics, computing and instrumentation industries.

DG4000 Series oscilloscopes are available in 60, 100 or 160 MHz models. Pricing begins at £565.

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LeCroy Corporation, a leading manufacturer and supplier of oscilloscopes and serial data solutions, today announced an international distribution agreement with Digi-Key. Digi-Key’s state-of-the-art global distribution network will place LeCroy oscilloscopes, arbitrary function generators and logic analyzers within easy reach of electronic design engineers and production equipment buyers in nearly every corner of the world, as well as expand the support network for LeCroy products. LeCroy is committed to working with Digi-Key in all key geographical markets to help put engineers and procurement professionals in control as they solve tough product development challenges.

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Digi-Key Corporation today announced the signing of a global distribution agreement with LeCroy, a leading provider of test and measurement solutions.
“LeCroy is a welcome addition to our expansive selection of quality suppliers,” said Jeff Shafer, vice president, global interconnect, passives, and electromechanical product, Digi-Key Corporation. “Adding a respected name such as LeCroy not only offers quality product to our global customers, but allows us to maintain our commitment to providing the most in-stock product available for immediate shipment.”

“Not only will our partnership with Digi-Key contribute to our global growth,” stated Roberto Petrillo, LeCroy worldwide vice president of sales, “Digi-Key’s international communication technology and logistics expertise will provide any engineer looking for our products, anywhere in the world, the value of superior service in the key areas of product availability, on-time delivery, and responsiveness.”

Since 1964, LeCroy has been designing oscilloscopes, protocol analyzers, and related test and measurement solutions to productively validate and thoroughly debug electronic engineering designs. Offering a powerful combination of large and informative displays combined with advanced wave-shape analysis capabilities, LeCroy instruments are tailored to enhance the productivity of engineers in the computer and semiconductor, consumer electronics, data storage device, automotive and industrial, telecommunication, and military and aerospace markets.

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Rapid Electronics have recently introduced a new range of test and measurement equipment and accessories from leading manufacturer Hameg Instruments.
The products include 2-channel and 4-channel digital, analogue and mixed signal oscilloscopes, bench top multimeters, spectrum analyzers, function generators, PSUs and a full range of accessories. Hameg products are designed specifically for the mid-market, budget conscious user in the educational, industrial and home environment.

Hameg digital oscilloscopes provide the full range of features and testing potential – bandwidth up to 200MHz, 2MPts memory depth, serial bus trigger and hardware accelerated decode, component testing and auto measurement. The extensive features, flexibility and high connectivity make these whisper quiet oscilloscopes ideal tools for training, laboratory, development and service. The HM8112-3 bench top digital multimeter offers high performance, feature rich measurement of volts, ohms and amps as well as frequency and period.

Also available are a complete range of accessories and parts, such as probes, plug-in antennas, thermopaper, interface cables, tweezers, carrying cases and counters.
Greg Potter, product manager of test equipment at Rapid, commented: ‘We are delighted to be launching Hameg’s extensive range of products. Hameg’s devices cater for users looking for optimum performance and affordability, and provide an excellent solution for test, laboratory and production applications.’

Rapid can support customers with competitive pricing, full technical support and product sourcing. For more details, technical specifications and datasheets please visit the Rapid website.

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Enhancing its sales force in Asia, Geotest welcomes VigVen Tech Mark Pvt. Ltd. as its distributor in India. Headquartered in Bangalore, VigVen will be representing Geotest’s products, including PXI & PC-based instrumentation, TS-900 Semiconductor test systems, ATEasy software, and the legacy instrument replacement product line.

“VigVen’s team has an extensive background in the semiconductor and ATE market space”, said Loofie Gutterman, president of Geotest. “With their experience, combined with our product offerings, our customers in India will have access to the right products for their individual applications.”

Mr Mahadevan, Managing Director of VigVen Tech Mark Pvt Ltd stated that “We at VigVen Tech Mark are extremely delighted for being appointed as exclusive distributors in India for Geotest products and solutions. Existing and new customers of Geotest can certainly look forward to excellent support in India”. Mr Radhakrishnan, Director Marketing of VigVen expressed that “With this partnership, we now offer the widest selection of solutions in PXI/VXI/LXI form factors and this is very exciting indeed”.

In order to better serve customer demand for smaller and yet inexpensive quartz crystals, oscillators and real time clocks (RTCs) in the future and also round off its broad-based portfolio of clock generators and RTCs, MSC Vertriebs GmbH has now signed a pan-European distribution agreement with Micro Crystal AG, a Swiss company.

Micro Crystal AG, a subsidiary of The Swatch Group Inc. Switzerland, was founded in 1978 as a producer of timing crystals for the watch industry. Today, Micro Crystal AG is a leading international developer and manufacturer of miniature and particularly energy-efficient quartz crystal devices for use in a variety of consumer and industrial applications.

In addition to 32.768 kHz SMD quartz crystals, which are optionally available in metal or ceramic miniature packages, Micro Crystal AG also produces a wide range of high accuracy and low power consumption RTCs including the world’s smallest RTC with a footprint of only 3.2 mm x 1.5 mm. “Whether digitally compensated SMD RTCs with an accuracy of ±6 ppm over the temperature range -40°C to +85°C or AECQ qualified 32 kHz quartz crystals for keyless entry and keyless go systems – Micro Crystal AG has once again demonstrated that particularly small and innovative quartz crystal products must not automatically be especially expensive. For this reason, these products, which are still predominantly developed in Switzerland, are an ideal complement to our existing product portfolio,” said Rolf Aschhoff, Sales and Marketing Director Frequency Division at MSC.

For Rüdiger Altschuh, Marketing Manager Central Europe at Micro Crystal, the distribution agreement with MSC is another important milestone in the company’s sales policy. “We want to continuously increase our European market share. The support from a technically experienced and pan-European distribution partner like MSC – who is in a position to actively support customers in focus segments such as metering, healthcare, security and automotive with design-in – brings us much closer to achieving this goal,” said Rüdiger Altschuh.

MSC now offers the SiT9121 and SiT9122 MEMS-based differential oscillators from SiTime. These differential oscillators feature a high stability of up to ±10 ppm and only 500 femtoseconds of integrated RMS phase jitter. They are ideally suited for use in centralized and edge routers, SATA / SAS / Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters (HBAs), cloud storage systems, servers, wireless base stations and 10G Ethernet switches.

Both the SiT9121, designed for the frequency range 1 MHz to 220 MHz, and the SiT9122, for use in the high-frequency range 220 MHz to 650 MHz, are configurable to individual customer requirements. The frequency, which is programmable with up to 6 decimal places of accuracy, guarantees the highest level of accuracy.

Furthermore, 50,000 g shock resistance, 70 g vibration resistance as well as a mean time between failures (MTBF) of 500 million hours ensures the highest reliability even under harsh environmental conditions.

The differential oscillators are equipped with configurable LVPECL and LVDS signaling levels and are offered both in the extended commercial temperature range from -20°C to +70°C and in the industrial temperature range from -40°C to +85°C. The devices operate optionally with a supply voltage of 2.5 V or 3.3 V. In addition, the SiT9121 and SiT9122 are available in industry-standard packages with dimensions of 5.0 mm x 3.3 mm and 7.0 mm x 5.0 mm respectively and are 100% drop-in replacements for differential quartz oscillators without any design or layout changes.

Furthermore, as with all MEMS-based products from SiTime, the SiT9121 and SiT9122 differential oscillators feature very short lead times. As a rule, samples are shipped within 48 hours ex factory and production quantities are delivered within 3 to 5 weeks.

Mass production is planned to start in February 2012. Detailed information about the SiT9121 and SiT9122 MEMS-based differential oscillators can be requested by sending an email to frequency-sitime@msc-ge.com

W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc. (Gore) announces that Astron Electronics, Inc. (Astron), Gore’s authorized sales representative in Southern California, will now sell Gore’s high-performance line of Test & Measurement Microwave/RF Cable Assemblies.

“Astron and Gore have built a strong relationship around Gore’s ePTFE and PTFE material technology, providing solutions for EMI grounding and shielding,” says Mark Mulle, Global Channel Leader for Gore. “We are excited to bring the same technical leadership of Gore’s high-performance Microwave/RF Test Cables to the Astron product offering.”

“These high-end products allow Astron to enhance our position with our clients that need premium-performance test cables. When RF engineers need to design for extremely precise and repeatable testing tolerances, we will provide innovative testing solutions such as the GORE® PHASEFLEX® Microwave/RF Test Assemblies and VNA cables,” says Steve Tennessen, President of Astron. “These products provide test engineers with ultra-high performance test cable assemblies that ensure consistent and reliable results in any precision test application through 110 GHz.”

Prism Sound has appointed two new representatives in the USA to help promote sales for its range of class-leading audio test and measurement instruments, which includes the revolutionary dScope Series III audio analyzer.

The new arrangement will see TFM Inc handling all Prism Sound Test & Measurement sales in New York, New Jersey, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.
In the south, Spectra Sales will be responsible for sales in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

With Prism Sound’s years of sustained growth in export sales and its recent receipt of the coveted UK Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the category of International Trade, the company recognised a need for dedicated sales partners to ensure better coverage and support for audio test and measurement clients throughout the USA.
Graham Boswell, Prism Sound’s Sales Director, says: “Both TFM and Spectra Sales have extensive experience of the Test & Measurement market, having previously handled competitors’ products. Prism Sound’s US National Sales Representative for Test and Measurement, Doug Ordon, and a US-based team of experienced and qualified electronics engineering professionals will work alongside both companies to ensure that customers receive full technical support and training.”

New York-based TFM offers test and measurement products and services to the engineering community in the North Eastern states of the USA. The company works with manufacturing, defence and technology companies as well as universities, test labs and research facilities.

TFM director Michael Wahlrab says: “We have been serving the audio test community for nearly 25 years and are very pleased to be representing a company of such high technical expertise and competence as Prism Sound.”

With offices in Houston and Dallas, Spectra Sales was founded in 1968 as a Manufacturer’s Representative for companies involved in the assembly and test of electronic devices and related technologies. The synergy of the company’s product lines enables Spectra Sales to assist manufacturers that want to upgrade, automate and improve their assembly and test processes. Spectra Sales attracts customers from a variety of industry sectors such as electronics, media, medical, petroleum, defence and the military.

Spectra Sales Vice President Jim Baker says: “We are excited to be representing Prism Sound’s range of Test and Measurement instruments because we feel the company has the right product at the right price point for the industry we call on. Almost every electronic device built today has a sound component associated with it and Prism Sound can test that component to standards needed by the customers. I’m confident the Prism Sound line will help us strengthen our customer relationships and, in turn, we look forward to helping them in their market leadership position.”

Simon Woollard, Sales Engineer at Prism Sound, adds: “I am very excited about these new partnerships. Both companies have long histories of supplying and supporting a wide range of test instrumentation and have established significant client bases in the audio test and measurement market.
“Prism Sound has a strong reputation for delivering state-of-the-art audio measurement solutions that address the requirements of the market, and we feel confident that TFM and Spectra Sales customers will be interested to learn more about the advantages offered by Prism Sound’s dScope Series III product range in all-round capability, engineering support and cost effectiveness.”