Acal Group is a one of IBM’s leading distributors in Europe. Our franchise agreement with Acal has been in place for many successful years. The company concentrates on providing value-added services with a focus on design-in and sales through a strong field application engineering force capable of aiding customers during the design cycle. The Acal Group has 24 principal trading companies that employ approximately 990 people across all main regions in Europe.

Acal confirms the first IBM® PowerPC® 405LP processor design-in at a key European customer specializing in high-tech military technology, who has chosen to use the 405LP in a portable, low-power information terminal for a specialist military application.

The customer needed a low-power CPU with a rich peripheral set for their application. An extended operating time was critical to this application, making a reliable and flexible ultra low-power CPU a requirement.

The initial product will be the foundation for the development of a comprehensive product portfolio and network infrastructure; therefore, it was paramount to establish a clear future direction involving higher-performance devices with enhanced peripherals.

The AMD Alchemy device was amongst the short list of processors evaluated. The IBM technical team working in conjunction with its local distributor Acal Semiconductors demonstrated the features of the 405LP using the Development Kit and PDA Reference Design available.

Time-to-market is crucial for the success of our customer’s product, so the hardware support and software enablement that we offered was a strong influencing factor in their processor choice. The customer chose the 405LP as the best solution for their application, and we look forward to launching their revolutionary new product.

Acal Semiconductors UK, a Division of Acal Technologies, was created to focus on semiconductor needs within the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) marketplace. With franchises of leading electronics suppliers, Acal Semiconductors is positioned to provide value-add solutions with a strong design approach. The sales teams joined with the field application engineers give Acal an opportunity to work with design engineers to deliver a suite of complementary components during the design cycle. Visit the Acal Web site at www.acal.co.uk/acal.htm for further information.