Premier Farnell has bought China-based Shenzhen Embest Technology which makes embedded system development boards and tools and supplies design engineering services.
The addition of Embest's products and services enables Premier Farnell to offer design engineering customers end-to-end solutions for every stage of the design process.
Embest has more than 12 years experience in embedded systems design including ARM-based embedded systems.
With over 130 employees,the majority of whom are design engineers,Embest serves 20,000 customers in China.
More than 200 universities in China have used Embest's educational products to set up embedded systems laboratories.The acquisition will see additional services to the element14 Community and the Knode,element14's unique online workspace for engineers.
"Embest has been a strategic partner of ours for a number of years and we share many complimentary relationships with global leaders such as ARM,Freescale,Atmel,TI and NXP,"says Laurence Bain,CEO of Premier Farnell.
The acquisition also gives Premier Farnell access to Embest's CooCox open source,web-based,Integrated Development Environment(IDE)for ARM based designs that is already used globally by 1000's of design engineers.
Embest will also continue to act as an authorized distributor of ARM/Keil Series Development Tools,Parasoft Testing Tools,CadSoft Eagle design software and HP Series Management Solutions.
The integration of CooCox IDE into the Knode will enable design engineers to leverage the Knode as a one-stop solutions resource centre for all their component,and now systems,design requirements.
Bringing the CooCox engineering community and element14 Community together will create a global social media platform for design engineers.
