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.
Wolfson signs global agreement with Future Electronics
Edinburgh, U.K. — Wolfson Microelectronics has signed a franchise agreement that makes Future Electronics its primary global distributor for all its products globally.
The new partnership is part of Wolfson’s strategy to widen its customer base and address the use of audio and mixed-signal ICs in consumer and industrial products.
Wolfson selected Future Electronics because of its expertise in technical sales, including its teams of field applications engineers in local branches across Europe, the Middle East, Africa (EMEA), the Americas and Asia, and the distributor’s System Design Centers in Egham (UK) and Montreal (Canada), which provide design services and Future-Blox development boards to customers. Wolfson also choose Future because of its turn-key design services and proof of concept designs in Asia.
Wolfson says Future Electronics also has proven capability in tracking new designs across borders. Many of the consumer and industrial products that use Wolfson devices are designed in EMEA or North America and manufactured in Asia.
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.