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RS Components and Fairchild to Offer Evaluation Boards in DesignSpark PCB Format

April 07, 2014 by Jeff Shepard

RS Components the trading brand of Electrocomponents plc and Fairchild Semiconductor Corp. are collaborating to create a set of complete reference designs for seven of Fairchild's most popular evaluation boards. According to the companies, the collaboration between Fairchild and RS marks a major milestone in the industry's adoption of the Open Source hardware style. Through this collaboration, the DesignSpark community of over 200,000 users has access to highly accurate and credible technical information from Fairchild, enabling faster design times. Consisting of full circuit schematics and PCB layouts in the industry's standard DesignSpark PCB format, these evaluation boards are now readily accessible to every engineer for insertion as ready-made blocks - with full bill of materials (BOM), pre-populated with ordering data - directly into their electronics designs.

Engineers will be able to save design time be re-using the design examples. As a result, designers can rapidly introduce Fairchild technology with manufacturer's recommended hardware setup into new electronic products. Additionally, they can freely modify the designs to suit their specific design requirements.

RS Components maintains a well-stocked inventory of nearly 2,000 Fairchild parts. All Fairchild parts stocked by RS are backed up by ModelSource PCB library files, allowing rapid integration into DesignSpark PCB, Altium, PADS, OrCAD and other popular ECAD formats. Further expansion of their inventory will eventually include the entire Fairchild product line and will be available from stock for same-day dispatch. Full coverage of ModelSource symbols & footprints is planned for all newly-introduced Fairchild products.