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.
GM to invest $246M in electric motors, hybrid components
Baltimore, Md. — General Motors will invest approximately $246 million in electric motor and electric drive manufacturing including construction of a high-volume electric drive production facility at the Baltimore Transmission plant. The facility, which will begin to manufacture electric motors in 2013 for GM’s Two-mode Hybrid system, is the first electric motor manufacturing plant in the U.S. operated by a major automaker, according to GM. The plant is expected to create about 200 jobs.
Through job retention and creation, Baltimore Transmission, which opened in 2000, will employ close to 400 people, and nationally, including immediate project jobs, manufacturing jobs and the impact on suppliers and local communities, the investment is estimated to retain or create about 1700 jobs, according to GM.
GM also recently announced that it has manufactured the first advanced lithium-ion battery for a mass-marketed electric vehicle at GM’s Brownstown Battery Pack Assembly Plant in Brownstown Township, Michigan.
GM announced in August last year a $43-million investment to prepare the 160,000-square-foot facility for production of lithium-ion battery packs for the Volt and other electric vehicles with extended-range capabilities. The plant is part of a wholly-owned subsidiary of General Motors called GM Subsystems Manufacturing LLC.
In just five months, new machinery and specialized equipment have been installed at the plant and three primary assembly areas have been completed: battery module pre-assembly, final assembly and the battery pack main line.
The Volt’s battery pack is made up of multiple linked battery modules and more than 200 battery cells. Initial battery production at Brownstown will be used to validate the plant’s equipment and processes, and batteries will be sent to GM’s Global Battery Systems lab in Warren, Mich., for testing, says GM. The car maker says it will begin shipping batteries this spring to its Detroit-Hamtramck plant, the assembly location for the Volt, for use in production validation vehicles.
Production at Brownstown and Detroit-Hamtramck is set to begin in the fourth quarter.
GM says it is investing $700 million in eight Michigan facilities for Volt-related production, including $336 million in the Detroit-Hamtramck plant.
In August, the U.S. Dept. of Energy selected 45 companies, universities and organizations, including GM, in 28 states for more than $2 billion in awards for electric drive and battery manufacturing and transportation electrification. Nearly half of that total is designated for cell, battery and materials manufacturing facilities in Michigan, says GM.
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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.