Mouser says Europe is its fastest growing market

Europe is the fastest growing market for online and catalogue distributor Mouser Electronics, growing even faster than Asia Pacific.
"Business in Europe is the fastest growing market for us at more than 220%," Mark Burr-Lonnon, Mouser v-p of Europe and Asia told Electronics Weekly.
"Asia Pacific is growing well too, but is just 200%," said Burr-Lonnon   
"Right now about 25% of our semicondcutor business is going into Europe," said Burr-Lonnon.
The US-based distributor is in the middle of a drive to increase its business outside the US, which currently stands at around 38%.
Europe currently accounts for 18% of Mouser's business.
Mouser has been opening European sales offices, most recently in Sweden and the Czech Republic.
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"Next year we will open offices in the Netherlands and Spain and then we are about right," said Burr-Lonnon. 
Mouser has just extended its distribution agreement with Avago Technologies to include Europe.
The distributor has identified specific products which it target at the European market, they include RGB, SMD, 5mm high brightness, plus 1- and 3W LEDs, along with Avago’s RF semiconductors.
“Our relationship with Avago Technologies correlates extremely well with our recent expansion into Germany, UK, Italy, France and Israel,” said Burr-Lonnon.
Steffi Kircher, Avago Technologies sales director for distribution in Europe, said he believes the distribution deal will help Avago expand the reach of its optoelectronics and RF products to a broader range of European design engineers.
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New Forms of Highly Efficient, Flexible Nanogenerator Technology

Can a heart implanted micro-robot operate permanently? Can cell phones and tiny robots implanted in the heart operate without having their batteries charged? Such advances may be possible in the near future, thanks to new nanogenerator technology.

he team of Prof. Keon Jae Lee (KAIST, Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering) and Prof. Zhong Lin Wang (Georgia Institute of Technology, Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering) has developed new forms of highly efficient, flexible nanogenerator technology using the freely bendable piezoelectric ceramic thin film nano-materials that can convert tiny movements of the human body (such as heart beats and blood flow) into electrical energy.
The piezoelectric effect refers to voltage generation when pressure or bending strength is applied to piezoelectric materials. The ceramics, containing a perovskite structure, have a high piezoelectric efficiency. Until now, it has been very difficult to use these ceramic materials to fabricate flexible electronic systems due to their brittle property.
The research team, however, has succeeded in developing a bio-eco-friendly ceramic thin film nanogenerator that is freely bendable without breakdown.
Nanogenerator technology, a power generating system without wires or batteries, combines nanotechnology with piezoelectrics that can be used not only in personal mobile electronics but also in bio-implantable sensors or as an energy source for micro robots. Energy sources in nature (wind, vibration, and sound) and biomechanical forces produced by the human body (heart beats, blood flow, and muscle contraction/relaxation) can infinitely produce nonpolluting energy.
Prof. Keon Jae Lee (KAIST) was involved in the first co-invention of "High Performance Flexible Single Crystal Electronics" during his PhD course at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This nanogenerator technology, based on the previous invention, utilized the similar protocol of transferring ceramic thin film nano-materials on flexible substrates and produced voltage generation between electrodes.
Prof. Zhong Lin Wang (Georgia Tech, inventor of the nanogenerator) said, "This technology can be used to turn on an LED by slightly modifying circuits and operate touchable flexible displays. In addition, thin film nano-materials ('barium titanate') of this research have the property of both high efficiency and lead-free bio compatibility, which can be used in future medical applications."
This result is published November in the online issue of the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters.
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Femtocells - The State of the Market

Simon Saunders, Chairman of the Femto-Forum looks at the state of the femtocell market their deployment, business case and new femtocell developments.

Much has been made of the disruptive potential of femtocells over the past few years, but we are now seeing the technology radically reshape live mobile networks. According to Informa Telecoms & Media, femtocells now outnumber macrocells in the USA - it won't be long before they do the same in the UK and Japan. Such is the nature of the small cell revolution that single countries will soon have more cells than currently exist on the whole planet. Here we'll look at what's driving the rapid ascent of the femtocell market and what we can expect in the coming months.

Femtocells have started to move into the mainstream following deployments by major operators in Europe, Asia and North America. The latest heavyweight to rollout services was Telefonica with its offering for businesses and consumers in Spain. This follows hot on the heels of Vodafone's trailblazing femtocell launches in Europe - in fact the operator now offers services in the UK, Spain, and Greece. Progress has been even quicker elsewhere with the three largest operators in the US and Japan all offering femtocells as well. In total there are now 17 operators that have deployed femtocells - double the number there were this time last year.

This influx of major operators has created a corresponding rise in major telecom vendors entering the space. While large infrastructure manufacturers such as Alcatel Lucent, Nokia Siemens Networks, Huawei and NEC have been offering femtocell products for some time, we're now seeing the major semiconductor players also entering the space. Qualcomm recently launched its femtocell chipset while Broadcom has made the first major acquisition in the femtocell space in the shape of Israeli chip start-up Percello.

Femtocell packages

Over the past few months we've also seen an important evolution in the consumer proposition. Several mobile operators around the world have started offering femtocells for free, or at highly discounted rates, either as a customer retention tool or as a means of rapidly increasing market share. For example, SoftBank Mobile in Japan is giving away free femtocells and ADSL connections to its customers while several others are offering packages where the femtocell and associated service are provided for free to loyal customers.

A recent consumer research project by analysts Parks Associates found that 56% of US consumers (with mobile phones and broadband) consider femtocells appealing with two thirds of these finding the technology either 'very' or 'extremely' appealing. This number rose to 89% when asking those already familiar with femtocells, suggesting that as awareness of the technology grows, so will interest.

The primary driver for consumer interest was improved in-home coverage followed by improved battery life, advanced femtocell services and home-zone tariffs. In fact, femtocell services, which use the presence of the mobile device in the home to trigger different events, could drive a new revenue stream for operators. Of those interested in femtocells 72% were very interested in at least one femtocell service; half of these respondents would be willing to pay $4.99/month for their single favourite service or $9.99/month for a bundle of their favourite three illustrating a potential new revenue opportunity for operators. Examples of such services include a virtual home number, which calls all mobiles in the home, or receiving personalised reminders when entering or leaving the home.
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Digital control is key, says Ericsson executive

"Digital control has been the single most important development in power supplies over the last decade and is the most promising advance for the future success of system power management,"  says Patrick LeFevre, head of marketing and communications at Ericsson Power Modules.

"When combined with best analogue design practice, digital power is an enabling technology through which board-level power modules can be integrated into other digital circuit elements such as processors and memories.

"This gives system architects the ability to precisely monitor and control the level of energy delivered under changing conditions.

"Power modules that incorporate digital control can respond to requests from a central energy management controller and also deliver data about operating conditions that helps in predictive maintenance.

"Despite the ongoing debates about the benefits of analogue versus digital control, for those already using digitally controlled DC/DC converters and point-of-load converters, such debates sound pre-historic.

"Both technologies have their merits and comparing one against another in generic terms is nonsense, particularly when you consider that digitally controlled power modules will always have embedded analogue circuits within them.

"To understand the potential of digital power, imagine a radio-base station powered by solar panels connecting a remote population to a main city. It is vital that communication works all the time and the cellular infrastructure must be energy-optimised at all times.

"Digital power sources optimise energy delivered to the load, monitor and control operational parameters, and make it easy to remotely reconfigure the system without sending an engineer to the remote site."
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