New TowerGeeks Community Takes Off

Digi-Key builds exclusive engineer-to-engineer community

THIEF RIVER FALLS, Minnesota - July 06, 2009 — The current buzz in the engineering world is Freescale Semiconductor's new Tower System and Towergeeks.org, an exclusive online community created for engineers by Digi-Key.

The Tower System is a modular, reconfigurable development platform for 8-, 16-, and 32-bit microcontrollers that allows designers to get to market faster with packaged evaluation boards, tools, and runtime software. Comprised of three types of modules (microcontroller, peripheral, and elevator modules), the Tower System enables engineers to reuse tools and rapidly prototype designs. Components comprising the Tower System are in stock and available for immediate shipment on Digi-Key's global websites.

"We're very excited about TowerGeeks," says Mark Larson, Digi-Key president and COO. "It's a place for engineers to share their ideas via the chat room and forum. With some cool prizes at stake, it's a place for fun and a little friendly competition as well. It is going to be interesting to see what engineers have in mind for these cutting-edge products."

During the month of July, Digi-Key will provide prizes for the "First Tower System Challenge." To qualify for the challenge, purchase a Tower System and show it in a video while explaining what you plan to build with it. July's competitions and prizes include:

• The first 25 TowerGeeks members to meet the "First Tower System Challenge" video requirements will receive a TowerGeeks shirt.
• Every week during July, a $25 Visa gift card and "Geek of the Week" title will be awarded to the member whose qualifying video is viewed the most times during each week.
• Finally, a Kindle 2 wireless reading device and "Geek of the Month" title will be awarded to the member whose qualifying video is most viewed during the month of July.

"We invite everyone to check out and join us at TowerGeeks," Larson says. "Where better for design engineers to learn and share ideas than from and with each other?"

About Digi-Key Corporation

One of the world's fastest growing distributors of electronic components, Digi-Key has earned its reputation as an industry leader through its total commitment to service and performance. As a full-service provider of both prototype/design and production quantities of electronic components, Digi-Key has been ranked #1 for Overall Performance for 17 consecutive years from among the nation's more than 200 distributors (EE Times Distribution Study/August 2008). Offering more than 1.5 million products from nearly 400 quality name-brand manufacturers, Digi-Key's commitment to inventory is unparalleled. Access to the company's broad product offering is available 24/7 at Digi-Key's top-rated website, www.digikey.com.