RS Components showcases its successful free online design tools at Embedded World 2012

FIND IT, DESIGN IT, BUY IT At the show, RS is outlining the successful initiatives undertaken by the company to support design engineers in their quest to achieve faster time-to-market for their products. RS provides a single source for an ever-expanding portfolio of more than 200,000 electronics components from leading global manufacturers, and has developed a range of free-to-access online design and search tools that enable designers to find parts online more quickly, and to purchase them in their industry standard package of choice for same-day despatch. Experience free online design tools Taking centre stage at the RS stand is DesignSpark PCB, the company's award-winning free professional standard PCB design software. RS is hosting interactive demonstrations of Version 3 of DesignSpark PCB, the latest release of the software, which provides extra functionality and enables it to be used with Spice simulation tools from several major manufacturers. It also includes enhancements such as component and circuit element grouping, and design calculators, which model circuit performance characteristics. Demonstrating supplier support RS is also showcasing development and evaluation tools from market-leading suppliers Microchip and Tektronix. Using a range of its development boards in stock at RS, Microchip is demonstrating key features and performance of its low-cost 32-bit PIC32 RISC microcontroller family, including graphics and memory interface functionality, as well as tools designed to ease the development of capacitive touch-based applications. Tektronix is highlighting the capability of its 3000 series mixed signal oscilloscope (MSO), a feature-rich tool designed for quickly verifying and debugging complex digital circuits using powerful digital triggering, high resolution acquisition capability, and analysis tools. Glenn Jarrett, Head of Electronics Marketing, RS Components, said, "We are particularly excited to bring our award-winning DesignSpark PCB software to Embedded World. This major event attracts thousands of electronics engineers from all over the world and is an important forum for us to directly address the design community, which is increasingly taking advantage of our free online tools. It also provides an ideal opportunity to share and discuss ideas for the continued development of this highly successful software."