Avnet reported an operating income of $313 million, a 4.9% increase over the previous quarter and a 14.3% year over year upturn.

element14’s contribution of $455 million in sales is an 11.5% increase from the previous quarter, while operating margin held steady sequentially at 9%. Farnell’s approach to fluctuating market conditions, including working in conjunction with partner organisations to overcome global supply constraints, proved integral to this robust financial performance.

Chris Breslin, President Farnell Global, said: “There are many factors that can impact the manufacture and distribution of electronic components and we have done well to predict and prepare for these.

“Despite the impact of key product line shortages and foreign currency exchange headwinds, we have demonstrated resilience in the face of industrywide challenges. Our overall performance has proven that our approach has been the correct one for element14 and our valued customers.

“We will continue to strategically invest to expand our electronic components portfolio, which will in turn enable our customers to seize every opportunity offered by the exponential growth of an increasingly evolving market.”

Read Avnet’s Third Quarter Fiscal 2023 Financial Results in full, and find out more about how element14 supports its customers here.

Farnell, an Avnet Company and global distributor of electronic components, products and solutions, is now shipping a broad range of ON Semiconductor products to support a new framework developed by ON Semiconductor and Avnet to help OEMs more rapidly develop end-to-end Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

The new framework simplifies the process of building IoT-enabled devices through rapid prototyping system solutions from ON Semiconductor that are preconfigured to connect to IoT application developers and service providers through the cloud. Avnet’s IoTConnect® Platform, powered by Microsoft® Azure and the associated Avnet IoT Partner Program, facilitate this connection. The resulting framework removes complexity from the IoT development process, enabling OEMs to easily build products and experiences around those products and bring them to market faster, while at the same time lowering risk

The first supported solution from ON Semiconductor is the RSL10 Sensor Development Kit, suitable for applications such as industrial wearables, asset monitoring, and smart sensing. The Development Kit features the industry’s lowest power Flash-based Bluetooth® Low Energy radio and an array of advanced environmental sensors, including an inertial sensor (3-axis accelerometer, 3-asix gyroscope and a low-power smart hub for motion sensing), a geomagnetic sensor, and an ambient light sensor. The Kit, now available from Farnell, is offered in a base version (RSL10-SENSE-GEVK) and with a debugger (RSL10-SENSE-DB-GEVK).

“With innovative, low-power system solutions from ON Semiconductor alongside the robust IoTConnect platform, Avnet and ON Semiconductor provide a secure development environment for jumpstarting any IoT initiative.” said Wiren Perera, who heads IoT at ON Semiconductor. “IoT presents a huge opportunity for OEMs to add autonomy to their products via sensing, connectivity and actuation, which can create new revenue streams and improve efficiencies. ON Semiconductor, Avnet and Farnell can help OEMs drive innovation forward by building smarter devices that address their customers’ needs.”

Lou Lutostanski, vice president of IoT, Avnet, added: “Avnet, via Avnet Silica and EBV Elektronik in Europe, and ON Semiconductor are offering solutions to meet the changing needs of OEMs and their customers. By leveraging expertise across the Avnet organization, and working closely with ON Semiconductor, we’re are to provide new ways to help OEMs stay competitive, maximize revenue potential, and design with the right technologies to create secure IoT solutions.”

The ON Semiconductor range is available from Farnell in EMEA, Newark in North America and element14 in APAC. For more information on how OEMs can address their IoT design needs, please visit: http://Avnet.com/Iotwithon.

Hackster.io, an Avnet community, is joining forces with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and 12 leading technology companies to support the world’s developing countries in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Launching today, the COVID-19 Detect and Protect Challenge is calling on engineers to design low-cost and easily deployable software, hardware and services that will support the detection and prevention of COVID-19 in some of the world’s most vulnerable areas.

“Through this challenge, our community at Hackster, the UNDP and Avnet’s technology partners are coming together to provide innovative solutions to get lifesaving technology to some of the world’s most vulnerable areas,” said Bill Amelio, CEO, Avnet. “We are proud to partner with the UNDP to activate local technology ecosystems to develop, shape and implement open-source solutions that can help detect and protect against COVID-19 around the world. It’s truly a global collaboration, with a longer-term and positive multiplier effect.”

The COVID-19 Detect and Protect Challenge aims to realize ten economical and easy-to-produce hardware solutions to strengthen detection and prevention efforts in developing countries, minimizing the strain on healthcare systems by helping to flatten the curve. Projects will be curated by Hackster and the UNDP, which will also work with each creator to deploy their projects to the frontlines where it is needed most.

“We’re turning to our network of developers and partners to share their ideas and designs with those who need them the most,” said Adam Benzion, co-founder, Hackster.io. “Through this challenge, we hope to bring forward some truly unique solutions that could make a real impact on the global fight against COVID-19.”

Avnet will provide support to accelerate the winners’ time to market by offering business consultation and access to engineering, design and manufacturing resources. Leveraging the power of Avnet’s extensive technology ecosystem, Hackster garnered further support from partners including Amazon Web Services, Arduino, Arm, Edge Impulse, Google, Microsoft, Nordic Semiconductor, Nvidia, NXP, Soracom and The Things Industries, each of whom will provide sponsorship, prizes and hardware and/or design support for a selection of project submissions.

Entries will be accepted and evaluated on a rolling basis through Summer of 2020. The UNDP will select the top ten inventions, whose creators will receive global recognition and monetary awards for their contribution to society and humankind.

Interested creators can go to https://www.covid19detectprotect.org/ to sign up and gather more information.

About Avnet

Avnet is a global technology solutions provider with an extensive ecosystem delivering design, product, marketing and supply chain expertise for customers at every stage of the product lifecycle. We transform ideas into intelligent solutions, reducing the time, cost and complexities of bringing products to market. For nearly a century, Avnet has helped its customers and suppliers around the world realize the transformative possibilities of technology. Learn more about Avnet at www.avnet.com and its Hackster community at www.Hackster.io (AVT) (CorpNws).

About UNDP

UNDP partners with people at all levels of society to help build nations that can withstand crisis, and drive and sustain the kind of growth that improves the quality of life for everyone. On the ground in nearly 170 countries and territories, we offer global perspective and local insight to help empower lives and build resilient nations.www.undp.org

Farnell, the Development Distributor, is now shipping the Avnet SmartEdge Industrial IoT Gateway; the low-cost industrial gateway powered by Raspberry Pi. Since the launch of the product at Embedded World Germany in February 2019, there has been significant demand for the gateway for use in a range of applications, including: building management, vehicle monitoring, industrial automation and predictive maintenance.

The Avnet SmartEdge Industrial IoT Gateway, coupled with seamless, secure connectivity enabled by Avnet’s IoTConnect platform delivers a powerful set of features to gather, analyse and provide actionable, real-time data visualisation — all at a best-in-class price. Avnet’s IoTConnect platform runs on Microsoft Azure, a comprehensive set of edge-to-cloud services that are enterprise-ready to build, deploy, and manage IoT connected assets efficiently.

The gateway provides versatile connectivity with data intelligence for a wide range of industrial 4.0 applications – including additional ports to handle industrial protocols, higher power input range, a trusted computing module for comprehensive end-to-end hardware data security, and a robust wall or DIN rail mountable metal enclosure. These features come alongside a level of simplicity, capability and accessibility never before achieved in this environment. Developers familiar with prototyping on a Raspberry Pi device will find it a straightforward task to bring their designs to an industrial environment without having to switch platforms.

Hari Kalyanaraman, Global Head of Single Board Computers at Farnell said: “We are very excited by the conversations we have had with customers about the Avnet SmartEdge Industrial IoT Gateway. Ease of use and seamless, secure connectivity make it ideal for developing industrial automation applications such as remote monitoring, predictive maintenance, process control and automation. Couple these advantages with best in class pricing, and we believe this device could be a key driver in the further adoption of Industrial IoT applications.”

Pete Bartolotta, President of Business Transformation at Avnet said: “The Avnet SmartEdge Industrial IoT Gateway will allow developers to design and scale their IoT projects faster and easier than ever before by leveraging a familiar platform that’s now industrialized for scale: the versatile Raspberry Pi. This product is a testament to the combined power of Avnet and Farnell – together our ecosystem provides the technology, support and tools developers need throughout prototyping and mass market production to bring IoT into the mainstream quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively.”

The Avnet SmartEdge Industrial IoT Gateway is available from Farnell in Europe and Newark in North America. The Avnet SmartEdge Industrial IoT Gateway is also available from Avnet Silica.

Notes to editors

Technical details

Connectivity options include a full set of industrial peripherals which include CAN-BUS and RS-232/ 485 (Modbus and DeviceNet) interfaces, isolated digital I/O and dual 10/100 Ethernet, with wireless connectivity including WiFi at 2.4 GHz and BLE 4.2 via an integrated antenna with external connectivity, plus an mPCIe interface for cellular modems. Power is via a 12-24 V DC input, and an HDMI display output is also incorporated. It is based on an 8 Gbyte EMMC which replaces the standard SD memory card, with security guaranteed by an onboard TPM 2.0.

The device also has the 40-pin expansion header to link with a range of devices from the ecosystem of HATs and other accessories.

The enclosure features space for an additional internal accessory to provide Zigbee, Z-Wave, or LoRa communications capabilities, for example, or for multiple accessories through case expansion. Mounting options include DIN rail, wall or free-standing.

Premier Farnell is now shipping SmartEdge Agile, a low power, IoT ready-to-use device developed through a partnership between Avnet (Nasdaq: AVT), Octonion and ST Microelectronics. The first in a new category called “Meta-Sensing”, SmartEdge Agile includes nine sensors, and provides design engineers with the ability to implement artificial intelligence (AI) at the edge through an easy-to-use, zero-code interface.

Success in today’s IoT market requires a unique combination of hardware, software and security solutions — all working together. Adding AI to IoT solutions by traditional means often creates even more challenges, including increased costs and greater complexity, and longer time to market. Tools that can alleviate these challenges become invaluable.

By utilizing SmartEdge Agile with Octonion’s new Brainium portal and AI Studio powered by Microsoft Azure, users will have access to a “zero-coding” revolutionary machine learning tool that enables developers and manufacturers to easily bring intelligence to their devices. Brainium Portal can be used to easily initiate a proof of concept (POC) by leveraging more than 20 predefined AI algorithms that can be re-used through to product launch. A Brainium software agent is embedded into SmartEdge Agile allowing seamless interface with AI Studio and facilitating the end-to end IoT solution which enables customers to focus on their use cases.

Ralf Buehler, SVP Product, Marketing and eCommerce for Premier Farnell added: “As the Development Distributor, Premier Farnell is focused on helping customers at the early stage of design, bring greater capabilities to their designs through intelligent technology. SmartEdge Agile is a revolutionary product in its field, bringing artificial intelligence to the edge for IoT solutions. With easy to use, drag and drop programming, this intelligence is now available to deploy, even to users with no coding experience.”

"With SmartEdge Agile and Brainium Portal, we are building core software on top of hardware to create even more value for our customers," explained Lou Lutostanski, VP, Internet of Things, Avnet. “AI and security at the edge are continually requested by our customers when building their IoT projects. This dynamic solution and portal duo not only meets those needs, it also brings us closer to our customers, and is shaping the future of how IoT projects will be developed and executed.”

“Up until now, engineers have been creative in building IoT solutions with technologies such as Arduino or Raspberry Pi, but with AI Studio, they will now be able to add AI capabilities to their products,” said Cédric Mangaud, CEO, Octonion. “We have been working on our AI technology for four years, and I’m confident that this machine learning tool in conjunction with SmartEdge Agile, will help users to build AI models in a quick and easy way, making the process more efficient and value-driven than ever before.”

SmartEdge Agile is CE and FCC Certified with Bluetooth Low Energy 5.0. Its internal battery can be charged by the USB type C connection. The device is based on a 80-MHz, 32-bit Brainium STm32 chip with an ARM Cortex-M4. The sensors board suite includes two 3D accelerometers, a 3D gyroscope, a 3D magnetometer, a pressure sensor, a humidity and temperature sensor, a microphone, an ambient light sensor and proximity sensor, all from STMicroelectronics. SmartEdge Agile also embeds a Secure Element to insure authentication, encryption and integrity of the exchanged data. The device is built in a modular approach at different levels: the sensor board, the connectivity board and the USB Type C connector allows adapting the device to the exact customer requirement.

The Brainium portal provides developers, entrepreneurs and makers with:

• An easy and intuitive drag-and-drop widget-based interface (features include: device monitoring, device provisioning, device management) with a real-time insights on your SmartEdge Agile devices
• Export of the data coming from their devices
• AI Studio for motion and vibration analysis
• End to end security model from the SmartEdge Agile up to the Cloud

SmartEdge Agile is available from Newark element14 in North America, Farnell element14 in EMEA and element14 in Asia Pacific.

To Sign in to Brainium portal visit www.brainium.com/portal

Join Avnet at CES in Las Vegas, USA, January 8-11 in Tech East Westgate, Booth #2609, where SmartEdge Agile and Brainium AI solution demos and use cases will be on display.

All brands and trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks, and are the properties of their respective owners. Avnet disclaims any proprietary interest in marks other than its own.

The two companies are creating a category of IoT solutions called “Meta-Sensing” that combines hardware and software that will allow engineers at any level to develop and deploy IoT solutions built with AI in as little as six to eight months. The first Meta-Sensing product, SmartEdge Agile, that will be built by Avnet and powered by the STM32 from ST Microelectronics, is an IoT device integrated with Octonion’s Brainium AI software to enable AI and security at the edge. Avnet and Octonion will preview the new solution via product demonstrations this week at electronica in Hall C5, Stand 101.

“Today, the majority of industrial companies planning to launch an IoT project are in the prototype phase, with each project usually taking 18 to 24 months. To help reduce time to market and related costs, developers are turning to AI technologies, but require new approaches to be successful,” said Lou Lutostanski, global vice president of IoT for Avnet. “Together, Avnet and Octonion are creating an industry-leading Meta-Sensing IoT solution that will quickly and cost efficiently allow customers to take their IoT project from idea to design, and prototype to production. It’s a perfect example of Avnet’s unique product development ecosystem in action.”

“We’re very thrilled to work with Avnet who recognizes our AI software expertise and offerings,” said Cédric Mangaud, CEO of Octonion. “We’ll be able to support customers across different verticals with our pre-industrialized Brainium platform, which has already been proven effective in the sports industry. I’m confident that this new Meta-Sensing approach in the market will help developers and enterprises alike speed up the deployment time of their IoT projects at a reduced cost.”

This comprehensive end-to-end solution is another example of how Avnet takes the complexity out of IoT for customers by providing devices that are smart, connected and trusted.

Join Avnet EMEA with its business units Avnet Silica, EBV Elektronik and Avnet Abacus; and Farnell element14, at the electronica Trade Fair in Munich, Germany, November 13-16, in Hall C5, Stand 101, where the SmartEdge Agile and Brainium solution demos and use cases will be on display.

All brands and trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks, and are the properties of their respective owners. Avnet disclaims any proprietary interest in marks other than its own.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181112005160/en/

Premier Farnell, the Development Distributor, has announced the availability of the Ultra96™, an ARM-based Ultra96 development board jointly created by Avnet, Xilinx, and 96Boards. The development board is based on the Linaro 96Boards Consumer Edition specification, features the Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC and provides developers with a unique and powerful environment to simplify machine learning. The 96Boards' specifications are open and define a standard board layout for development platforms.

The Ultra96 is uniquely designed to offer a wide range of potential peripherals and features programmable logic acceleration engines which help to deliver complexity with simplicity. It allows software developers to accelerate the development process for applications that require intense processing and high performance in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, virtual reality, IoT and industrial control.

Cliff Ortmeyer, Global Head of Solutions Development for Premier Farnell said: “As the Development Distributor, our aim is to provide design engineers with the latest technologies that enable them to speed up their design process and get products to market faster. The Ultra96 board combines Arm processing with programmable logic in a convenient, low-cost and expandable board which showcases a wide range of potential peripherals and acceleration engines that will help design engineers counter software bottlenecks.”

The Ultra96 boots from the industrial rated Delkin 16GB MicroSD card (supplied with the Ultra96 board), preloaded with Embedded Linux. Design engineers can connect to the Ultra96 through a Web server using its integrated wireless access point capability, or use the pre-loaded Embedded Linux plus Enlightenment Desktop via integrated Mini DisplayPort video output. Multiple application examples and on-board development options are provided as examples.

The board includes four user-controllable LEDs. Design engineers can also interact with the board through the 96Boards-compatible low-speed and high-speed expansion connectors by adding peripheral accessories such as those included in Seeed Studio’s Grove Starter Kit for 96Boards.

Features include:

• Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC ZU3EG A484
• Micron 2 GB (512M x32) LPDDR4 RAM
• 16 GB microSD card pre-loaded with Embedded Linux OS
• 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2 (provides both Classic & BLE)
• Mini DisplayPort (MiniDP or mDP)
• 1x USB 3.0 Type Micro-B upstream (Device) port
• 2x USB 3.0 and 1x USB 2.0 Type A downstream (Host) ports
• 40-pin Low-speed expansion header
• 60-pin High-speed expansion header

The Ultra96 development board is available from Farnell element14 in EMEA, Newark element14 in North America and element14 in Asia Pacific.

One million members have joined Avnet’s online communities, element14.com and Hackster.io, creating the world’s largest collaborative networks of engineers, entrepreneurs and developers who learn from each other’s product ideas. element14 and Hackster help product developers all over the world get work done faster and more effectively. Instead of scouring several sources for answers, members turn to the communities of Avnet (Nasdaq: AVT) for consolidated information on new technologies as well as access to experts.

“The most exciting part is that our members get hands-on with the latest products, working on real designs,” said Bill Amelio, Chief Executive Officer, Avnet. “Because they learn from real-world project examples, industry experts and each other, our community members are more likely to find the right path to get their idea from prototype to mass production.”

Amelio added, “Today we celebrate our community members and say ‘thank you!’ Your contributions add enormous value to Avnet’s connected ecosystem. By sharing information, best practices and know-how you’re helping to bring better products into the world.”

Avnet acquired both element14 (as part of Premier Farnell) and Hackster.io in 2016. Since then, the two online communities have continued to experience rapid growth as technology advancements such as IoT introduce more learning opportunities as well as complexity into the product development process. Combined membership grew by approximately 48 percent year over year and details about both communities are depicted in this infographic.

element14 is a discussion-based online community where engineers collaborate to solve one another’s design challenges. Members can see what other engineers are working on, learn from their experiences as well as online training, and get help to optimize their own designs. Seeing technology in action and having the ability to road test their projects is one of the main benefits for element14 members.

“element14 is a prime example of how the consistent sharing of information is driving the democratization of design,” said Dianne Kibbey, global head of community and social media for element14. “Our members are more active than ever, and with the support of Avnet’s ecosystem we’ve been able to get more technology into their hands.”

Hackster.io is a project-based online community for anyone who wants to learn about programming and building hardware. One of the world’s fastest growing communities, the site also hosts in-person workshops and meetups to help individuals, whether or not they have previous engineering or design experience, take their hardware ideas to the next level.

“With the support of the Avnet ecosystem, we have been able to accelerate our outreach to more people in more places and offer better learning tools for hardware creation,” said Adam Benzion, co-founder and CEO at Hackster.io. “It’s been fascinating to see our members’ skills evolve as they pursue projects in emerging areas such as blockchain and artificial intelligence, or specific components like FPGAs.”

With a collective membership of one million across element14 and Hackster.io, Avnet continues to engage engineers, entrepreneurs and developers online and guide them through each stage of the product lifecycle, from prototype to mass production. To learn more about Avnet and its one million member strong communities, check out this related infographic and visit Avnet.com.

Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT), a leading global technology distributor, today announced the promotion of Graham McBeth to the role of president of Premier Farnell Plc, effective immediately. McBeth will report directly to Gerry Fay, president, global business units, Avnet. In his new role, McBeth will be responsible for the strategic direction, day-to-day operations and performance of Premier Farnell.

McBeth, who most recently served as President of Avnet Abacus, the Avnet business specializing in interconnect, passive and electromechanical (IP&E) products throughout Europe, replaces Premier Farnell’s interim President Steven Webb. Webb, a 16-year veteran of Premier Farnell, has played an integral role during the last several months in overseeing Premier Farnell’s integration into the Avnet organization. He will remain with the company until January 31, 2017, to assist in the leadership transition.

“Graham is an accomplished leader who knows how to win in the market. With his strong commitment to team building, Graham grew the Avnet Abacus division into one of the most well-respected IP&E businesses in Europe,” said Fay. “His deep understanding of Avnet’s global business will enable Graham to serve as a great bridge for the Premier Farnell team, its customers and suppliers.”

“Since Avnet first announced its intent to acquire Premier Farnell, I recognized what a tremendous opportunity this would be to advance Avnet’s strategy of providing customers with a differentiated digital experience throughout the entire product lifecycle,” said McBeth. “This is the start of an exciting new chapter for both Avnet and Premier Farnell and I am thrilled to have the chance to help drive further success for our organization and our design and supply chain partners.”

A native of Scotland, McBeth is a results-oriented leader with extensive industry experience. He graduated from Glasgow University in 1984 and spent 11 years at National Semiconductor in a variety of roles, from product marketing to distribution and sales management. McBeth joined Abacus Group Plc in 1995, was appointed to the main board as technical director in 1997, and later became group managing director of Abacus with responsibility for the company’s sales and marketing strategy. In 2009, following the acquisition of Abacus Group by Avnet, McBeth became president of Avnet Abacus and led the IP&E specialist to a top position in the European market.

Headquartered in Leeds, United Kingdom, Premier Farnell is a global distributor of electronic components that utilizes a digital platform to provide innovators and engineers with the latest products, services and development software. Avnet offered to acquire Premier Farnell in July 2016 and completed the acquisition in October 2016.

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“The combination of Premier Farnell with Avnet’s components business will create a truly unique distribution model that supports customers at every stage of the product lifecycle. By pairing our deep expertise in large volume broadline distribution with Premier Farnell’s specialization in proof of concept and design, we can offer true end-to-end solutions that accelerate a customer’s time-to-market and moves their products seamlessly from prototype through to volume production,” said William Amelio, Chief Executive Officer of Avnet. “As technology reaches deeper into more products and innovation proliferates through the internet of things, the ability to reach a wider base of engineers earlier in the design process will be critical to our future growth and success.”

Headquartered in Leeds, United Kingdom, Premier Farnell is a global distributor of electronic components that utilizes a digital platform to provide innovators and engineers with the latest products, services and development software. The company supports a registered community of more than 430,000 members in 36 countries with multi-channel sales and marketing resources that combine traditional field sales and contact resources with innovative ecommerce interfaces.