Helpful resources for the electronics supply chain

I’m out of the office this week, but before I officially sign off, I wanted to pass along a few electronics supply chain resources that I’ve been selfishly keeping to myself.

Both Avnet Electronics Marketing and Newark have been making great efforts in the last few months to better reach the design portion of the electronics supply chain.

For its part, Avent EM has updated its Design Resource Center Web site. Tailored to design engineers, the site offers access reference designs, product briefs, user and program guides, schematics and application notes. The site also provides exclusive access to select evaluation and development kits created by Avnet design engineers and supplier partners. It’s now extremely easy to use and gives design engineers direct access to more than 150 offerings, searchable by manufacturer, technology or product.
 
Newark’s Electronics Design World offers similar information with links to the latest application notes, white papers and block diagrams from leading manufacturers, cross-indexed to assist with the comparison of design solutions from multiple brands. The site also includes a news center and legislation center for compliance guidance through the design process.

Newark has also begun offering free subscriptions to its monthly technical journal Leading Edge, which until recently was available to the company’s technical and design engineer customers only. Click here to sign up. 

Meanwhile, we here at EDN have teamed up with Supply Frame to offer manufacturer data direct from the source and component datasheets and prices. We simply call it Part Search. 

I’ve been playing around with all of the above resources for a few months now (except Newark’s journal, which I just signed up for last week). They pass my tests, not always with flying colors, but they do pass. Avnet EM and Newark have been doing a good job keeping the information up to date; same goes for our own Part Search. Check out Part Search, Avnet EM’s Design Resource Center and Newark’s Electronics Design World and journal and let me know what you think. And if you know of any other online resources worth mentioning, feel free to do so in the comment field below.