Premier Farnell and FTDI sign global franchise distribution agreement for USB technology
Global agreement adds FTDI solutions for enabling USB connectivity to Premier Farnell’s extensive USB product offering
14 September 2010, London – Premier Farnell plc (LSE:pfl), in line with the company’s focus on Electronic Design Engineers (EDE), driving business to the web and growth in emerging markets, announces a global franchise distribution agreement with Future Technology Devices International (FTDI), a leading specialist in the design and supply of silicon and solutions for Universal Serial Bus (USB) connectivity.
Premier Farnell customers will now have global access to FTDI Chip’s expansive portfolio of USB ICs and connectivity products including converters for legacy RS232, RS422 and RS485-based applications and technologies that enable USB connectivity within embedded designs. Most products will be offered from stock. In this agreement FTDI will extend their marketing support to Premier Farnell and collaborate on new product information via element14, Premier Farnell’s innovative information portal and online community exclusively created for electronic design engineers to globally collaborate, share and access new information to support them in their design work.
Through Premier Farnell’s global distribution network and element14, FTDI products can be ordered in bulk and are available for next-day delivery. Local language websites and regional offices ensure that Premier Farnell’s customers receive excellent sales and technical support on all its product lines.
FTDI designs and supplies complete silicon, hardware, and software solutions for enabling USB connectivity within customer products. The company’s silicon solutions include their industry leading range of USB converter ICs, providing flexible connectivity to a wide range of devices and applications. More recently, FTDI have expanded their portfolio with the Vinculum II USB Host / Slave controllers designed to provide USB Host level functions and capabilities within embedded applications. FTDI’s mission is to provide designers with complete low-risk, ready-to-use USB connectivity within their products while providing benefits of reduced development cost and faster time to market.
“This global distribution agreement with FTDI is an integral part of our business strategy to enhance the Premier Farnell value proposition by continually developing and growing our already extensive line card of leading technology suppliers to satisfy the evolving requirements of our customers worldwide,” said David Shen, Group Senior Vice President and Global Head of EDE and Technical Marketing of Premier Farnell. “We are excited by the opportunity this new distribution agreement with FTDI affords us to attract new design engineering customers worldwide”.
“FTDI offers solutions that significantly simplify and speed both the migration of legacy designs to USB and the integration of USB into new applications,” said Fred Dart, CEO of FTDI Chip “We offer the easiest route to USB migration by combining USB Serial and USB FIFO silicon solutions with our ready-to-go royalty free USB drivers and our “total” solution offers customers reduced development and debug costs with a quick time to market. Through our new global agreement with Premier Farnell we will be able to support and service the worldwide design community with the technology to address legacy peripherals to UBS for the next generation of innovative technology applications.”
Photo Caption: Paul Heaven-Jones and Jasbir Gohlar of Farnell visiting FTDI Chip with Daniel McCaffrey, Senior Sales and Marketing Manager, and Andrew Cumming, Sales Assistant of FTDI.
Editor’s Note: A high resolution JPG of the above image can be found at: http://www.pinnaclecrc.com/PR_PICTURES/Premier_Farnell/PF316/
About FTDI
Future Technology Devices International (FTDI) specialise in the design and supply of silicon and software solutions for the Universal Serial Bus (USB). FTDI offer a simple route to USB migration by combining easy to implement IC devices with proven, ready to use, royalty-free USB firmware and driver software. The company’s single and multi-channel USB peripheral devices come with an easy to use UART or FIFO interface. These popular devices can be used in legacy USB to RS232/RS422 converter applications or to quickly interface an MCU, PLD, or FPGA to USB. A wide range of evaluation kits and modules are available to evaluate FTDI’s silicon prior to design-in.
Vinculum is FTDI’s brand name for a range of USB Host / Slave Controller ICs that provide easy implementation of USB host controller functionality within products, and utilise FTDI's tried and tested firmware to significantly reduce development costs and time to market.
FTDI is a fabless semiconductor company headquartered in Glasgow, UK, and has regional offices in Oregon, USA, ShangHai, China and Taipei, Taiwan. More information is available at: http://www.ftdichip.com
About Premier Farnell
Premier Farnell plc (LSE:pfl) is leading the way in the high service, multi-channel provision of essential products, information, software and technology solutions to electronic design engineers, maintenance and repair engineers and purchasing professionals globally. Its differentiated proposition includes 29 local language transactional websites, and the critically important element14 ecommunity for design engineers – an industry first (www.element-14.com). With sales last year of £795.3m and underlying profits of £54.8 the Group distributes its comprehensive portfolio of products and services throughout Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, supported by a global supply chain of over 3,500 suppliers and an inventory profile developed to anticipate and meet its customers’ needs. Recently awarded Platinum status by the Business in the Community Corporate Responsibility Index the business takes its CSR commitments very seriously.
Key facts:
• Over 3,500 leading suppliers.
• Over 400,000 products stocked with access to over four million.
• Millions of customers in over 156 industries
While global in scope, Premier Farnell recognises the individual needs of each market and has continued to internationalize its model accordingly, trading locally under different brand names. Its primary electronics businesses trade as Farnell in the UK, India, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Newark in the US, Canada and Mexico, and Premier Electronics in China and Hong Kong. In Singapore, Malaysia, and Brazil the operation is known as Farnell Newark.
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