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.
Arrow, IPS ink global distribution deal
Littleton, Colo. — Infinite Power Solutions (IPS), a manufacturer of solid-state, thin-film energy storage and energy-harvesting power management products, has announced a global distribution agreement with Arrow Electronics, Inc., a leading global distributor of electronic components and solutions, to distribute IPS’ INFINERGY Micro Power Module (MPM) product family.
INFINERGY MPMs are miniaturized “plug & play” power modules with integrated power management and solid-state energy storage that simplify the design and adoption of self-powered, microelectronic systems using ambient energy, said the company.
The INFINERGY product family integrates IPS’ THINERGY solid-state Micro-Energy Cell (MEC) devices, which the company said provides unrivaled cycle life and near loss-less energy storage. The MPMs enable the harvested energy to be available on-demand by the system and can be thought of as a micro-UPS (uninterruptible power supply), according to the company.
These devices are designed to efficiently store variable AC and DC charge energy from common energy harvesting devices. Because these MPMs provide maintenance-free, autonomous power for decades, they outlive and outperform conventional rechargeable batteries and supercapacitors.
Arrow also will collaborate with IPS on ultra-low-power microelectronic system solutions that leverage this energy storage technology, while also providing field applications engineering, sales and marketing support.
Arrow’s initial stock of INFINERGY MPM products will include the D-MPM101-7B in a multi-connector configuration for rapid system prototyping, and the MPM101-7B in a 20-pin SMT configuration for volume PCB assembly using standard component pick-and-place equipment. Both MPMs provide a 3.3V regulated output. Additional configurations will be available in the future.
Arrow is also stocking the THINERGY Application Development Platform (ADP), a unique development tool used to demonstrate the performance advantages of THINERGY MEC and INFINERGY MPM products, even while powering the developer’s application. The ADP simplifies the lab setup for evaluating the effectiveness of various energy harvesting charging circuits, according to the companies.
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.