Boards/Backplanes

PCI and PXI programmable resistor and relay cards, which feature 12 resistor channel options, a resolution of 0.25-2Ω and channel counts of either two or four, have been released by Pickering Interfaces. To extend the resistance range within a test system, the 50-294 PCI card and the 40-294 PXI card are optionally available with eight SPST relays. 

Vekatech’s new development board VK-RZ/A1H with the embedded microprocessor RZ/A1H from Renesas with an ARM Cortex-A9 is available at Rutronik24.com. The embedded microprocessor RZ/A1H runs at up to 400MHz clock speed and integrates up to 10MB of on-chip RAM, OpenVG compatible graphics accelerator, dual LCD-drivers and camera inputs.

The Windows Bean Loader has been launched by Punch Through Design, hailed as the first-ever wireless Arduino programming app for Windows users. This enables Windows-based developers and hobbyists to easily upload code to their LightBlue Bean MCU board and experience the power of BLE, without cables or a physical connection to the LightBlue Bean.

A PCIe Gen3 carrier board, which allows high-performance commercial video or other boards to be utilised in a MicroTCA system, has been released by VadaTech. The AMC104 allows customers to use high-end commercial graphics cards as removable mezzanines, as well as upgrade their PCIe GPGPU or other video boards. 

  Providing a reliable and cost-effective way to connect an LCD to a PCB, the Zebra elastomeric connector has been released by Fujipoly. When positioned between a PCB and LCD, the connector makes redundant electrical contact using 140 conductive pads per inch.

Mouser Electronics is now stocking the PT62SCMDxx Dual SIC MOSFET Driver Boards from Cree. Designed to drive the CREE CAS300M17BM2 SIC MOSFET modules, the PT62SCMD12 and PT62SCMD17 single-board solutions are dual silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET gate drivers optimised to ensure maximum performance for SiC modules.

Featuring an ARM Cortex-A5 microprocessor, the Atmel Xplained SAMA5D4-XULT board allows users to evaluate, prototype and create high performance, application-specific designs. The development kit, now on sale at element14, includes 4Gb DDR2 external memory, one Ethernet physical layer transceiver, two SD/MMC interfaces, two host USB ports and one device USB port, one 24-bit RGB LCD and HDMI interface and debug interfaces.

RS Components has signed up a new distribution partner in Bare Conductor, developers of the innovative Electric Paint and the Arduino-based Touch Board. Electric Paint is electrically conductive, non-toxic, solvent-free, and water-soluble. It can be used as a liquid wire, as a cold-soldering medium, or even as a conductive adhesive.

Designed for PCB magazine racks, the ezCLIP universal stop clip has been released by Count On Tools. The device provides manufacturers who manually load/unload PCB magazine racks a way in which to simply distinguish required spacing between boards, while preventing damage to boards with taller components.

Datest has introduced a PCB reverse engineering service, which allows it to rebuild CAD files and board data from PCBs and PCBAs. This service can not only be used to produce PCB/PCBAs without CAD files or other board data, but also to update obsolete boards through testing and redesign.