(Sacramento, USA: December 10, 2009) The Linux Professional Institute (LPI), the world’s premier Linux certification organization (http://www.lpi.org), announced that it had expanded its training partner program to include 44 nations–up from 33 a year ago.  In addition the organization has increased the number of LPI-Approved Training Partners (LPI-ATP) and LPI-Approved Academic Partners (LPI-AAP) to a total of 242 partners — up 10% from this time last year.

Jim Lacey, president and CEO of LPI credited the continuing growth to the increased participation of post-secondary institutions in LPI’s training program: “In the last year we have made substantial efforts to reach out to the academic community and describe to them the benefits of our training program. Many have participated in LPI in the past by providing insight and input into our exam development process.  However, the academic community’s renewed and increased participation at LPI demonstrates that our vendor-neutral Linux certifications add to their educational programs while providing additional benefits to their students who will be pursuing IT careers in the future.”

Notable milestones in LPI’s training partner program in 2009 include the
following:

• Ecole Nationale Polytechnique (http://www.esp.sn): first LPI-AAP in Senegal
• Nouvelle Universite’ Bulgare (http://www.nbu.bg/index.php?l=322?=1): first LPI-AAP in Bulgaria
• Association DNT (http://www.netacad.dnt.md/en.html): first LPI-AAP in Moldova
• General Computech (http://www.general-computech.com): first LPI-ATP in Mali
• CNTG (Centro de Novas Tecnoloxias de Galicia: http://cntg.xunta.es/web/cnt/home) and IES D’RAN (http://www.iesaran.com/): first LPI-AAPs in Spain
• University of Lancaster, ICT Focus (www.lancaster.ac.uk/ictfocus): first LPI-AAP in the UK
• Howe Systems (http://www.howesystems.com/): first LPI-ATP in Ireland
• Liga Distribution ApS (www.liga.dk) is LPI’s first training partner in Denmark
• Linagora (www.linagora.com/LINAGORA-Belgium) of Belgium, Brussels is the first LPI-ATP in that country
• VVR Tecnologia em Software (www.linuxnewmedia.com.br) of Sao Paulo, Brazil, a new training partner, has also published recent LPI books for Linux Magazine Brazil for both LPIC-1 and LPIC-2
• a long time developer of LPI courseware materials, Guru Labs (www.gurulabs.com) has become an LPI-ATP and is now hosting several exam labs for local LPI candidates in Utah, USA.

For more information on the benefits of becoming an LPI training partner please contact your local LPI Master Affiliate or Area Operations Manager: http://www.lpi.org/affiliates

Additional information on the LPI’s training partner program can be found at: http://www.lpi.org/training

The Linux Professional Institute is globally supported by the IT industry, enterprise customers, community professionals, government entities and the educational community. LPI’s certification program is supported by an affiliate network spanning five continents and is distributed worldwide in multiple languages in more than 7,000 testing locations. Since 1999, LPI has delivered over 230,000 exams and 75,000 LPIC certifications around the world.

December 10, 2009 – Uppsala, Sweden. IAR Systems today announced the availability of IAR KickStart kit for NXP LPC1114. This is believed to be the world’s first commercial starter kit for ARM Cortex-M0-based microcontrollers.

The strong partnership and tight cooperation during the development project between NXP and IAR Systems has led to IAR Systems latest starter kit being the first in the market.  One of the features which enabled the speedy development of this kit was the fact that the NXP LPC11xx Cortex-M0 family is 100% pin compatible with the NXP LPC13xx Cortex-M3 family.  “This kit is proof of that concept.  We were able to re-use 100% of the design from our recently released LPC1343 kit!” says Sara Skrtic, Development Kits Manager, IAR Systems.  Both the Cortex-M0, and Cortex-M3 processor families are supported by the new competitively priced IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM Cortex-M toolchain.

“Ease of development and migration path within the two compatible families is the main theme at NXP” says Geoff Lees, General Manager, Microcontroller Division, NXP.  He continues “We see this as true compatibility, not just peripheral compatibility between an older 8-bit core, and a different 32-bit architecture.”

“We are extremely pleased with IAR Systems’ commitment to our new Cortex-M0 family, and are very confident of their success with this kit.”

IAR KickStart Kit for LPC1114 contains all the necessary hardware and software for engineers to quickly design, develop, integrate and test Cortex-M0 applications. The NXP LPC111x family of devices are low-cost 32-bit MCUs designed for 8/16-bit applications and offer good performance, low power consumption, a simple instruction set and memory addressing together with small code size.

“We are very excited to have the first starter kit for NXP new family based on the ARM Cortex-M0 processor. NXP LPC1114 has a small footprint and very low power consumption; we believe that the new family will become very popular silicon on the embedded market” comments Fredrik Medin, Marketing Director, IAR Systems.

IAR KickStart Kit includes a development board fitted with the LPC1114 microcontroller, an 8K KickStart edition of IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM, and a 20-state evaluation edition of IAR visualSTATE.

The board also provides debug support through IAR J-Link-OB, a standard JTAG connector or a small SWD connector. The board is powered via the USB interface, removing the need for any external power supply. It also provides some user configurable devices such as a small LCD, buttons and LEDs, analog trim wheel, buzzer and a prototyping area. In addition, the UART pins are routed to a DB9 connector.

IAR J-Link-OB is a small board mounted JTAG/SWD debug interface that connects via USB to the PC host running Windows. It integrates into IAR Embedded Workbench and is fully plug-and-play compatible.

IAR Embedded Workbench is an Integrated Development Environment with a complete and easy-to-use set of C/C++ cross compiler and debugger tools for professional embedded applications. It contains project manager, editor, linker and librarian tools, C-SPYŽ debugger, full integration with IAR J-Link, complete upgrade path available from IAR Systems. IAR visualSTATE is a UML-compliant graphical design environment for reactive systems, with advanced formal verification and validation tools as well as a very powerful code generator.

IAR KickStart Kit for LPC1114 is priced at 100 / $ 139
IAR KickStart Kit for LPC1343 is priced at 100 / $139

More information about the starter kit can be found at www.iar.com.

About IAR Systems

IAR Systems is the world’s leading supplier of software tools for embedded systems that enable large and small companies to develop premium products based on 8-, 16-, and 32-bit microcontrollers, mainly in the areas of industrial automation, medical devices, consumer electronics and automotive products. IAR Systems has an extensive network of partners and cooperates with the world’s leading semiconductor vendors. Established in 1983, IAR Systems is part of the Intoi Group since 2005. For more information, please visit www.iar.com.

HONG KONG, Dec. 10 /PRNewswire-Asia/ — Avnet Electronics Marketing and Xilinx have Asia clearly in their sights for X-Fest 2010. The global seminar series will kick-off its Asia leg in Beijing on 12 January 2010, before moving on to 10 cities in Mainland China, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Australia and India.

The 11 Asian sites are part of a 37-location global X-Fest tour. In each of these venues, technical seminars provide practical, how-to training for FPGA, DSP and embedded systems designers. These one-day seminars offer several 75-minute training courses for attendees to choose from, designed to provide specialized training on design solutions for FPGA circuitry and the components surrounding FPGAs.

Attendees also have access to design solutions from sponsors including Cypress Semiconductor, Emerson Network Power, Intel, Maxim Integrated Products, Molex, National Semiconductor, Numonyx, NXP Semiconductors, Spansion, Texas Instruments (TI), and Tyco Electronics. Xilinx will showcase multiple demonstrations and development platforms, including interfacing DDR3 and LPDRAM with the Xilinx Spartan(R)-6 hard memory controller, interfacing to an analog world, and designing products for the human experience.

“X-Fest 2010 continues a 12-year tradition of delivering high-quality, deep-dive training on the latest technology to help engineers simplify their design efforts and improve product design cycles,” said Stephen Wong, president, Avnet Electronics Marketing Asia.

“X-Fest has been a very popular seminar series for engineers. The last X- Fest, which was held in 2007, attracted over 7,000 attendees across the globe and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Engineers found the topics relevant to their applications and helpful for implementing real world designs. This year, we are bringing in more suppliers to provide complete solutions to the customers attending this global event,” Wong said.

X-Fest Asia will take place in the following locations:

• Shanghai 14 Jan 2010
• Beijing 12 Jan 2010
• Chengdu 19 Jan 2010
• Shenzhen 21 Jan 2010
• Taipei 26 Jan 2010
• Hsinchu 28 Jan 2010
• Seoul 2 Feb 2010
• Singapore 4 Feb 2010
• Melbourne 9 Feb 2010
• Sydney 11 Feb 2010
• Bangalore 16 Feb 2010

Attendees will leave X-fest armed with the tools and practical knowledge necessary to tackle system level design for new and existing design challenges for embedded processing, DSP, power supplies, memory interfaces and analog front ends. For complete information, about X-fest 2010, including full course descriptions, locations and registration information, please visit: http://www.em.avnet.com/xfest .

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About Avnet Electronics Marketing Asia

Avnet Electronics Marketing Asia is part of Phoenix-based Avnet, Inc. (NYSE:AVT) , a Fortune 500 company with fiscal 2009 sales exceeding USD16.23 billion. Serving customers in more than 70 countries, Avnet is one of the largest distributors of electronic components, computer products and embedded technology.

Avnet Electronics Marketing has a significant presence in Asia-Pacific — the fastest growing electronics market in the world. With its regional headquarters in Singapore, the company has offices in over 40 locations in Asia. Avnet Electronics Marketing Asia distributes semiconductors, interconnect, passive and electromechanical components to serve a wide range of customers including original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), electronic manufacturing services (EMS) providers, and small- to medium-sized businesses, and provides associated design-chain and supply-chain services. The company’s web site is located at http://www.em.avnetasia.com/.