Bourns Circuit Protection Products Selected as EDN Innovation Award Finalist

Riverside, Calif., February 25, 2009 Bourns, Inc., a leading manufacturer and supplier of electronic components, today announced that the company’s breakthrough Transient Blocking Unit (TBU) circuit protection devices have been selected from hundreds of nominations to be a finalist for this year’s EDN Innovation Awards.  Instituted in 1990, the Innovation Awards honor the people, products, and technologies that have shaped the semiconductor industry over the past year.  Bourns’ TBU products are technology finalists in the Power Semiconductor category.  As the first new approach to electronics circuit protection in over a decade, Bourns’ new TBU technology is designed to block a transient through a current disconnecting mechanism rather than diverting or shunting the surge to ground.  This blocking technology virtually eliminates latency in the circuit protection design which results in advanced surge protection for sensitive electronic equipment within nanoseconds.

“We are thrilled that our TBU products have been singled out by EDN as innovative and enabling for our customers,” said Dr. Erik Meijer, vice president of circuit protection at Bourns.  “TBU technology delivers a completely new way of protecting sensitive electronic circuits from surges and other harmful events, and we are extremely honored to have a Bourns product line distinguished in this manner.”

The selection criteria for the EDN Innovation Awards competition included the following:  nominees must have demonstrated innovation that resulted in a significant advance in technology and/or product development during the past 12 months.  Nominees within the Innovations of the Year Power Semiconductors category must have shipped in volume in the 2008 calendar year.  

“We have our broadest set of categories in the history of our Innovation awards program in 2008,” said Rick Nelson, editor-in-chief of EDN Magazine.  “With specialization affecting everything from components to test equipment, our staff diligently worked to group like technologies for meaningful comparison and delivered an outstanding slate of finalists.  The slate includes the range of ICs from analog to processors, development and EDA software, amazing sensors, and modular and system products, including test equipment.  The voters will face tough decisions, but without doubt, compelling products will emerge as winners.”

EDN’s worldwide audience of electronic engineers and engineering managers will use an online ballot to select the ultimate winners from among the finalists.  EDN’s editorial staff and Editorial Advisory Board also take part in determining the final winners.  Please visit www.EDN.com/innovation19 to review each of the nominees.  Winners will be announced at a dinner and awards ceremony on March 30, 2009, in San Jose, CA.

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EDN serves the vital information needs of design engineers and engineering managers worldwide.  EDN.com delivers a three-dimensional view of the electronic industry via news coverage, strategic business information, and in-depth technical content.  (www.edn.com). EDN is published by Reed Business Information (www.reedbusiness.com/us), the largest business-to-business publisher in the U.S. and a member of the Reed Elsevier Group Plc (NYSE: RUK and ENL) – a world-leading publisher and information provider.