Arrow Europe, the largest European electronics distributor and subsidiary of Arrow Electronics, Inc. (NYSE: ARW), today announced a distribution agreement to market Ember Corporation’s ZigBee™ wireless mesh networking systems throughout Southern Europe.
Arrow will market and support Ember’s family of ZigBee-compliant semiconductors, software and development tools to European manufacturers and resellers seeking to tap into the fast growing ZigBee market for applications in home automation, building controls, medical monitoring, industrial automation, automatic meter reading, asset management and homeland security, to name a few.
“Ember’s ZigBee system has become one of the preferred platforms for embedded wireless networks for sensing and control applications,” said Massimo Dall’Occo, Arrow Southern Europe marketing semiconductors director. “Ember’s products extend Arrow’s wireless semiconductor portfolio in Europe.”
Ember develops tiny, low-power ZigBee systems for creating wireless sensing and control networks that automatically configure and heal themselves, and work for years on very little power. Products in the distribution agreement include the Ember EM250, a 802.15.4/ZigBee semiconductor system that integrates a programmable microprocessor, RF radio, network protocol stack and memory into a tiny, single-chip solution; the EM260, a network coprocessor designed to provide customers the flexibility of choosing their own tiny microcontroller to run their application; and embedded EmberZNet ZigBee-compliant networking stack and development tools.
“The support of Europe’s leading electronics distributor is another example of ZigBee’s sweeping market adoption,” said Mohamed Awad, Ember’s director of business development in Europe. “OEM customers are looking for low power, low cost, and scalable networking solutions. This partnership will enable us to leverage Arrow’s demand creation expertise and broad customer base.”
ZigBee: Wireless Control That Simply Works
The ZigBee Alliance is an association of companies working together to enable reliable, cost-effective, low-power, wirelessly networked, monitoring and control products based on an open global standard. The ZigBee Alliance is a rapidly growing, non-profit industry consortium of leading semiconductor manufacturers, technology providers, OEMs, and end-users worldwide. Membership is open to all. Additional information can be found at www.zigbee.org.
About Arrow Electronics
Arrow Electronics ( http://www.arrow.com ) is a major global provider of products, services and solutions to industrial and commercial users of electronic components and computer products. Headquartered in Melville, N.Y., Arrow serves as a supply channel partner for nearly 600 suppliers and 150,000 original equipment manufacturers, contract manufacturers and commercial customers through a global network of more than 200 locations in 53 countries and territories.
About Ember Corporation
Ember enables communication among embedded microcontrollers with standards-based wireless mesh networking semiconductors and software. Ember helps its customers to automate home appliances, lower energy consumption in buildings, keep borders and infrastructure secure, and control industrial processes, just to name four of the many diverse applications being developed by Ember’s more than 100 customers. Spun out of MIT in 2001, Ember is headquartered in Boston and has its radio development center in Cambridge, England, and distributors worldwide. Ember is a lead member of the ZigBee Alliance, and its platform is the National Technical Systems’ (NTS) “Golden Suite” for 802.15.4/ZigBee interoperability testing. For more information, please visit www.ember.com.
