Avnet Electronics Marketing Celebrates 50 Year Anniversary with Vishay Intertechnology

 PHOENIX– In 1963, the Rolling Stones played their very first gig together, Beatlemania kicked off, and Avnet Electronics Marketing, an operating group of Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT), entered into its first agreement to distribute products for Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. (NYSE: VSH). Over the next 50 years, as the companies continued to work together, Vishay, a then-small startup company, would grow to become a discrete semiconductor and passive electronic component megastar whose products can be used in virtually every type of electronic product today.

A mere year after Dr. Felix Zandman founded Vishay in 1962, Avnet and Vishay inked a distributor agreement that was instrumental in bringing Dr. Zandman’s PhotoStress® coatings and instruments to the market. Originally representing Vishay’s Bulk Metal® foil resistors, which were ultra-precise components based on the entirely new technology invented and patented by Zandman, Avnet was a key ally in helping Vishay products become pervasive throughout the electronic product landscape. In 2010, Vishay Intertechnology spun off its resistive foil technology, precision sensors, and sensor-based systems businesses into a new, publicly traded company called Vishay Precision Group (NYSE: VPG).

Vishay Intertechnology has grown its product portfolio through acquisitions including such top names in discrete electronic components as Dale, Sfernice, Draloric, Sprague, Vitramon, Siliconix, General Semiconductor, BCcomponents, and Beyschlag. With each acquisition, Avnet continued to grow its Vishay line card. Today, Vishay Intertechnology’s portfolio of brands represents an unmatched collection of discrete semiconductors, optoelectronics, integrated modules, and passive components that are customer favorites in the Avnet offering.

“Over the past five decades, the relationship between Vishay and Avnet has enabled our customers to create innovation in virtually all types of electronics devices,” said Harley Feldberg, president of Avnet Electronics Marketing worldwide. “We’ve grown together through a period of extreme technological change. As technology continues to evolve, our relationship will continue to support that innovation, hopefully for another 50 years.”

“The excellent global relationship we have shared for the past 50 years provides a meaningful advantage for both Vishay and Avnet and gives our customers leading-edge, innovative components linked to excellent service solutions,” stated Vishay’s David Valletta, executive vice president of worldwide sales.

To view the entire Vishay product line from Avnet, see http://www.avnetexpress.com.