Noritake Company, Inc. (Nagoya, Japan) has selected Mouser Electronics Inc. (Mansfield, TX) to distribute its vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) modules. According to Mouser, introducing the VFD modules to its engineering customers can help Noritake market its products to a previously untapped segment, and it may also bring additional customers to Noritake. Mouser says that the distrubition agreement also enables it to offer more-robust design services. Noritake's VFDs offer high brightness, wide viewing angles, wide temperature ranges, multiple functions and fonts, and advanced graphics capabilities. The company's compact, low-power, U-version VFD modules have an 8- and 4-bit parallel interface, as well as an LCD-compatible interface.

The modules feature a 5-V single power supply, a power-saving mode, and four levels of brightness control. Another VFD module included in the agreement features advanced chip-in-glass and MCU technology. Built-in features include eight levels of brightness control, a wide viewing angle, up to four independent windows with individual control, and optional color optical filters and luminance.