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.
Infineon tops power semiconductor ranking
Wellingborough, U.K. — Infineon Technologies remains the largest global power semiconductor supplier in 2008, for the sixth consecutive year, increasing its market share by 10.2 percent, according to a new report from IMS Research.
The global power discrete and module market reached $13.9 billion in 2008, growing only 0.7 percent from 2007 due to a significant slowdown in the fourth quarter, according to IMS Research.
The market research firm’s latest report, The World Market for Power Semiconductor Discretes & Modules, projects the overall market will fall by 22 percent in 2009. Power discrete devices will see the worst decline, with revenues falling by more than $2.5 billion with half of the decline in the power MOSFET and protected MOSFET product areas.
“Revenues from power semiconductors are predicted to fall significantly in 2009,” said Josh Flood, market analyst at IMS, in a statement. “However, compared to projections for the overall semiconductor market, the picture is less gloomy. The power semiconductor market is forecast to make a steady recovery in the second half of 2009, and several suppliers have revised their projection for the second half of the year.”
IMS Research anticipates healthy growth for the power semiconductor market in 2010, with market growth of around 7 percent. IMS says many of the larger western economies are now starting to stabilize from the economic downturn.
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.