Farnell allies with Würth Elektronik in home appliances campaign

Farnell has joined forces with Würth Elektronik to help design engineers further improve the connectivity and advanced feature sets of ordinary home appliances, without losing sight of the fundamental expectations for reliability, quiet operation and efficiency.

The “Home Appliances meet WE Components” campaign championed by Farnell has introduced a range of meticulously crafted products tailored for design engineers’ needs. Everything from switches and film caps to fast connectors, wireless solutions, sensors, common mode chokes, and snap ferrites have been optimised for every facet of modern appliance design.

Farnell Product Segment Leader for Würth Elektronik, Josh Ahern, said, “We rely on home appliances to keep our lives running smoothly. So much so that we often take them for granted, when in fact brewing our morning coffee and keeping our refrigerators chilled perform vital roles in our lives. However, as they become ever-more sophisticated, it is imperative that the components used to ensure their reliability as well as their expanding feature sets are developed with equally top-quality components. That’s why we are delighted to support WE’s campaign to inform and engage with the developers who are migrating our reliable household electronics to the next generation of usability and longevity.”

Simon Baumann, Coordinator international Engineering, White Goods at Würth Elektronik, concurs, “Most home appliances today contain a large number of electronic circuits. For example, motor control components, heating and cooling elements or user interfaces all have to work efficiently, reliably and be EMC compliant”.

As home appliances get smarter, they still need to be dependable, quiet and affordable to run. That means that developers have a lot more to consider when they are working on new appliance designs, and features that not only offer more benefits, but remain in compliance with regulatory requirements. The partnership between Farnell and WE facilitates the transition to exciting new home appliance designs and features.

https://www.farnell.com

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Arrow releases FPGA reference board for industrial edge and TSN applications

Arrow Electronics has introduced the Cyclone® 10LP Refkit Industrial to accelerate development of smart and connected solutions for diverse applications including Industrial IoT, automation, communications, computing, and smart energy.

Building on the existing commercial Cyclone® 10LP reference kit, Arrow has worked with technical collaborator Trenz Electronic, co-developer of the commercial board, to strengthen the design for industrial deployments.

The new Cyclone® 10LP Refkit INDUSTRIAL packs 128MBit on-board Flash to host complex and flexible applications and is especially suited to applications involving industrial Ethernet connection and Time Sensitive Networking (TSN). All Flash and DRAM chips are specified industrial temperature grade, and the Intel Cyclone® 10 LP 10CL055YU484I7G FPGA at the heart of the board is a fast speed grade, industrial-temperature rated device. The FPGA contains 55,000 logic elements and 156 DSP blocks, with 2.34 Mbit embedded memory and 321 I/Os for designers to configure and employ in their applications.

Arrow offers flexible support services for customers using the kit, including help with custom PCB modifications, developing alternative form factors if needed for fitting, integrating alternative devices on the board, and unleashing the potential of the Intel Cyclone® 10 LP FPGA on-board. The Intel Cyclone® 10 LP targets industrial and embedded applications, with extensive features and performance for edge applications, low power consumption, high efficiency, and capacity to host AI algorithms.

The new industrial-ready board, part number TEI0009-02-PHIQ2R, is available now from https://www.arrow.com/en/products/tei0009-02-phiq2r/trenz-electronic-gmbh

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Farnell provides access to two versions of Ardunio Uno R4

Two new Arduino Uno R4 boards are now available from Farnell, in an expansion of the Uno family portfolio. 

The Uno R4 Minima and Uno R4 Wi-Fi are suitable for use by beginners and experienced developers. They introduce a 32-bit architecture with new capabilities for makers, explained Farnell.

The Uno R4 is powered by Renesas RA4M1 32-bit Cortex-M4 processor running at 48MHz, providing a three fold performance increase over the Uno R3.

These enhancements are fully backward-compatible, however, and do not compromise working with existing shields and accessories, said Farnell. The SRAM has been upgraded from 2kbyte to 32kbyte and flash memory is 256kbyte, compared to 32kbyte, in order to support more complex projects. There is also a 12-bit analogue DAC, an on board op amp, a USB-C port and maximum power supply voltage of 24V with an enhanced thermal design. Other features include a CAN bus and an SPI port, enabling users to reduce wiring and perform parallel tasks by connecting multiple shields. There is also an HID device to emulate a mouse or keyboard

The Uno R4 Minima provides powerful and affordable technology for designers who want the power and speed the Renesas processor can bring but do not have any need for additional features. Onboard SWD pins provide a simple way to connect third-party debugging probes for system operation.

The Uno R4 Wi-Fi features an Espressif ESP32-S3-mini co-processor and offers Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, providing robust internet accessibility for IoT projects.

The Uno R4 Wi-Fi additionally includes low energy Bluetooth / Wi-Fi, a fully addressable 12×8 LED matrix, a Qwic 12C connector for external I2C connectivity, a real time clock with support for a buffer battery and runtime errors diagnostics.

Arduino is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software which has built up a worldwide community of makers, including students, hobbyists, artists, programmers, and professionals, contributing accessible knowledge that can greatly help novices and experts alike.

The new Arduino Uno R4 boards is available from Farnell in EMEA, Newark in North America and element14 in APAC.

https://uk.farnell.com/

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Rutronik signs Europe and Israel distribution deal with MediaTek 

Independent distributor, Rutronik, has signed a franchise agreement with fabless semiconductor company, MediaTek to distribute MediaTek’s portfolio of IoT chipsets in Europe and Israel. 

Its Genio processors offer fast multi-core performance with high energy efficiency, making them suitable for robotics, industrial automation and IoT applications. 

The agreement adds another semiconductor company to Rutronik’s linecard. MediaTek specialises in developing SoCs for mobile, home entertainment, connectivity and IoT products. The Genio series targets brands developing consumer, enterprise, and industrial smart applications at the premium, mid-range and entry levels. Rutronik will help distribute the Genio processors to customers that are designing smart home appliances, industrial automation applications, robotics, POS (point of sale) devices, digital signage, and other IoT applications.

“For us, customer orientation and future viability means offering precisely those products that are currently in demand or will be in demand. MediaTek’s innovative components and technologies add real value to our line card. The symbiosis of high-performance components and our know-how fulfills exactly what our customers expect from us as a distributor,” said Reza Armin Maghdounieh, vice president product marketing, semiconductors at Rutronik.

MediaTek said its Genio series combines quality, robustness and longevity. It offers fast multi-core performance with high energy efficiency, even for computationally intensive applications, said the company. Its development environment allows designers to customise products using Yocto Linux, Ubuntu, and Android and MediaTek’s development kits help to reduce the costs of development in the long term and accelerate time to market. 

In addition, Rutronik’s Embedded portfolio offers board-level solutions from manufacturers including Advantech, Kontron, Seco, and VIA in different form factors using the Genio chipsets. For customers, this means a fully comprehensive ecosystem from the product to the design and the solution, said Rutronik.

“We are continuing to see a strong demand for consumer, enterprise, and industrial smart applications, so we look forward to working closely with Rutronik to help brands bring intelligent devices to market faster,” said Richard Lu, vice president of MediaTek’s IoT business unit.  

He hoped: “As the largest European distributor, Rutronik will help us to further expand our IoT footprint in the region.” 

http://www.rutronik.com

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