Touch user interfaces have made significant advances in the consumer electronics market particularly for mobile phones and notebook computers, opening the door for adoption in other applications including white goods, computer peripherals, medical equipment, and instrumentation. Synaptics made its debut in the home appliance market earlier this year with the launch of the Samsung Hauzen ZERO air conditioner.
The standout products on day three of the SID 2010 conference is Universal Display's new PHOLED display architecture with a unique four-color, sub-pixel design, which promises to drive commercial development of all-phosphorescent active-matrix OLEDs and Sony's tiny rollable OLED display that can wrap around a pencil.
Smaller distributors were the only ones to post sales gains in 2009. Interestingly, two of the five distributors that posted growth last year -- Interstate Connecting Components and Sherburn Electronics -- derive 100 percent of their sales from interconnect products. Both of them also target the military/aerospace industry. Here are the top 10 sales leaders by ICs, passives/electromechanical devices, interconnects and computer products as well as sales growth.
Spot pricing for DRAMs and NAND continue to fall
Stamford, Conn. — Spot pricing is down again for DRAMs and NAND flash devices, according to market research firm Gartner Inc. However, spot pricing for DRAMs fell slightly by 1.9 percent with a range of -3.9 percent to 3.7 percent.
Some DRAM vendors had hoped to stop the spot pricing declines and wanted to raise prices, reports Gartner, but demand in the consumer market is still weak, and idle capacity has returned. Gartner believes if DRAM vendors hope to keep the spot pricing healthy, they need to continue to limit their capacity.
Average spot pricing for DRAMs across all densities and technologies was down 0.1 percent compared with the previous week, standing at $1.29 on a 1-Gb equivalent basis.
In the NAND market, spot prices were lower across nearly all device types, led by the 8-Gb
MLC part with the steepest decline, reports Gartner. On a weighted 1-GB average, pricing dropped 8 cents to settle at $2.11 and marked the fifth week in two months that spot prices fell.
While recent spot market declines are encouraging for buyers, the price declines still represent a very small impact in comparison to the unprecedented run-up in prices since early December, according to Gartner.
NXP offers a low-power IC aimed at MPPT applications using PV cells or fuel cells. 
C&K Components offers a series of low-cost, miniature slide switches. The OS Series of RoHS-compliant switches feature a new high-temperature option for lead-free soldering.