PHOENIX – February 1, 2016 – Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT), a leading global technology distributor, today introduced the Agate IoT Solution, a family of integrated kits designed to lower the cost of long-life connected gateway and network edge device development for OEMs. The Agate IoT Solution brings together the hardware, software and services required for next-generation IoT applications.

The Agate IoT Solution consists of the Agate LS1021A Gateway Kit, which combines the purpose-built LS1021A-IoT gateway hardware platform from NXP^® Semiconductors, featuring the QorIQ^® LS1021A communications processor. The platform comes pre-packaged with Wind River^® Pulsar^™ Linux, a small, high-performance, secure, and manageable Linux distribution designed by Wind River, a leading vendor of Linux platform solutions for the IoT, to simplify and speed software development.  Pulsar is configured to access the Wind River public repository for the most critical Linux updates. In addition, Wind River offers an update service providing regular bug and security fixes for the Pulsar system. Customers can easily add WAN connectivity using the Agate Cellular Connectivity Kit, which enables the HSPA+ (3G) cellular modem from MultiTech Systems and cellular SIM from Aeris to facilitate communications between wireless networks.

“Avnet’s Agate IoT Solution empowers customers by leveraging Avnet’s diverse ecosystem of suppliers with best-in-class hardware, software and service offerings to create a fully integrated connected gateway development solution,” said John Salemme, vice president and general manager of Avnet Embedded. “And, the multiple I/O options give customers peace of mind knowing they will have the compute performance they need today, and for years to come, even if unexpected application workloads are added.”

“Customers need a complete solution to get to market as fast as possible,” said Nikolay Guenov, director of marketing for NXP’s Digital Networking business unit. “The Agate LS1021A Gateway Kit provides a robust, application-ready software platform to help customers take advantage of the rich I/O and power-efficient computing of our QorIQ LS1021A processor.”

“Developers need a reliable platform that leverages the best open source software technologies and is easy to deploy,” said Dinyar Dastoor, vice president and general manager of operating system platforms at Wind River. “Pre-packaging powerful, purpose-built hardware with highly customized and maintainable software puts focus on developers’ value-added applications.”

The Agate LS1021A Gateway Kit includes:

• NXP LS1021A-IOTB featuring the QorIQ LS1021A processor
• Board, enclosure and power supply
• Wind River Pulsar Linux distribution including IoT security profile and Web-based management interface
• Free 90-day evaluation of Wind River Workbench
• Trial access to Wind River Helix^™ App Cloud and Wind River Helix Device Cloud development environments

The Agate Cellular Connectivity Kit includes:

• HSPA+ cellular modem from MultiTech Systems with pre-integrated Aeris SIM
• Pentaband cellular antenna and cable
• 90-day M2M cellular service demonstration plan from Aeris

“Reliable, scalable and cost-effective data delivery for IoT devices is instrumental to ensuring a successful IoT program. That’s why we welcome programs such as Avnet’s Agate IoT Solution, which helps speed the process of IoT innovation,” said Janet A. Jaiswal, vice president of marketing at Aeris.

“By developing this reference platform, Avnet is taking the hard work out of sourcing, testing and integrating the building blocks of IoT for their customers,” said Rick Nozel, vice president of sales and marketing, MultiTech Systems. “As a result, customers can easily test and prove their IoT application ideas and bring them to market faster.”

For more information or to purchase the Agate IoT Solution, please click here.