ITASCA, IL – Kester recently completed an expansion project at its Itasca headquarters to dedicate more floor space to solder paste and tacky soldering flux products.

Floor space was increased more than 3,000 sq. ft., the company said.

The project was centered on improving environmental control for these products, and to improve product quality, says the firm.

EL SEGUNDO, CA — Pricing for commodity electronics components is falling at a moderate rate, but the pace of erosion reflects the fact that pricing has already hit rock bottom in many commodity categories, according to iSuppli Corp.

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MULINO, OR -- Sunstone Circuits and NXP Semiconductors are collaborating to build and certify the complete NXP parts catalog within Sunstone’s PCB123 V3.2 design software.

Design engineers can search the manufacturer’s parts library, including certified footprints and schematic symbols, and then order parts in real-time from Digi-Key’s online database via PCB123’s LiveBOM tool.

“By eliminating the need for designers to build out their own parts libraries, we are saving designers a tremendous amount of time and energy, which translates into greater productivity and reduced costs throughout the entire design flow,” said Sunstone president and chief executive Terry Heilman.

Digi-Key president and COO Mark Larson said, “We know our colleagues at NXP share our view that providing reliable information and getting components in front of engineers at the point of part selection through the integration of our information databases into design software such as the PCB123, is another way of providing our mutual customers within the engineering design community with superior service.”

“NXP continually looks for industry innovators to collaborate with to best serve our customer base,” said John Tuley, senior director, distribution Americas of NXP Semiconductors. “Sunstone Circuits and its world-class PCB123 software, combined with Digi-Key’s electronics parts database, present design engineers with the perfect solution to quickly and easily design and build prototype PCBs – creating unique opportunities for NXP and our customers.”

MINNEAPOLIS – SMTA requests papers for SMTA International, to be held Oct. 4-8 in San Diego.