September 2026 Connector Industry News

Upcoming industry events, as well as recent award, partnership, promotion, personnel, facility, distribution, standards, association, and certification news from across the connector industry.

September 2026 Connector Industry News

September 2026 Connector Industry News > Event News

DigiKey’s annual Back to School Giveaway, which gives U.S. university students a chance to win a $1,000 DigiKey shopping spree, is now open. Students in the U.S. with a university or college email address can enter until Oct. 12, 2026, and winners will be announced by the end of October 2026. Five U.S. university entrants will be randomly selected. Winners will build and submit their product selections through My Lists, DigiKey’s comprehensive digital list management and quoting tool. DigiKey’s consistent level of service, coupled with its repository of knowledge, contest activities, rich content, technical support, resources, tools, and customized solutions for students and universities, makes DigiKey Education a premier destination for future engineers, designers, and makers looking to enrich their education. To learn more about DigiKey’s free educational tools and academic resources for coursework and projects, visit DigiKey.com.

September 2026 Connector Industry News > Award News

TTI Inc. has been named one of the Best Companies to Work for in Fort Worth 2026. This is the second consecutive year TTI has received this award. The Best Companies to Work for in Fort Worth is a survey-and-awards program that annually honors employers in Fort Worth that are making their workplaces exceptional and purposeful. This is a project of Fort Worth Inc. magazine in partnership with Workforce Research Group. Companies and organizations agree to allow their employees to be surveyed by Workforce Research Group. The data is then ranked based on employee benefits and company culture, including leadership communications, vacation policies, wellness initiatives, training, and activities like outings to sporting events.

Weidmuller USA shared that the Weidmüller Group and the company’s SNAP IN technology achieved an official GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS listing and created a completely new record title that had not existed before: Fastest Time to Connect 500 Terminal Blocks into a Single Chain by a Team. Using SNAP IN connection technology, invented by Weidmüller, a team at the global headquarters in Detmold, Germany, wired 500 terminal blocks with a total of 1,000 connection points in a verified time of 2 minutes 55 seconds. The record was achieved by employees from Development, Product Management, and other specialist departments who were directly involved in developing the groundbreaking technology. The record attempt was overseen and the result was officially confirmed by official GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS adjudicator Lena Kuhlmann, who evaluates and certifies record attempts worldwide. Drawing on her experience from numerous national and international record projects, she monitored compliance with all requirements and officially confirmed the result. The record attempt took place during a celebration marking Weidmüller Group’s 175^th anniversary.

ODU has been awarded the EcoVadis Bronze Medal, placing the company among the top 35% of all businesses assessed worldwide and marking an important milestone on ODU’s path toward even more sustainable business practices. With more than 150,000 companies evaluated, EcoVadis is one of the world’s leading providers of sustainability ratings. Assessments cover performance in the areas of environment, labor and human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement. The results are widely recognized as an international benchmark for sustainable and responsible business conduct. The recognition received in summer 2026 reflects the ongoing development of ODU’s sustainability activities. After being acknowledged with EcoVadis’ “Fast Mover” status in the previous year for significantly improving its rating, ODU was able to further enhance its sustainability performance and achieve the Bronze Medal for the first time. This progress demonstrates that the company’s long-established sustainability activities and processes continue to evolve and are increasingly gaining visibility and recognition in external assessments. Sustainability has been firmly embedded in ODU’s corporate values and business processes for many years. This includes resource-efficient production methods, the use of renewable energy, certified environmental and energy management systems, as well as a wide range of initiatives supporting employees and community engagement. At the same time, the consideration of sustainability criteria within international supply chains is becoming increasingly important. Many customers use EcoVadis as a basis for evaluating their suppliers and regularly incorporate the results into procurement and sourcing decisions. ODU is already connected with numerous customers via the EcoVadis platform and, with its current rating, meets important market and customer requirements. The award also strengthens the company’s position in the international competitive environment.

September 2026 Connector Industry News > Facility News

Indium Corporation opened a new manufacturing facility in Guadalajara, Mexico. The newly completed 1,230-square-meter facility will manufacture solder paste, cored wire, and wave flux products to support customers throughout the Americas and global markets. Production will initially focus on Indium Corporation’s paste series Indium8.9HF and Indium10.8HF. This marks the first phase of the company’s long-term manufacturing investment in Mexico, with more capabilities planned as the facility grows to meet customer demand. At full capacity, the Guadalajara facility is expected to produce approximately 18-20 metric tons of solder paste per month. In addition to manufacturing and operational roles, the site will house customer service and technical support teams.

September 2026 Connector Industry News > Partnership, Distribution, and Investment News

Molex announced a strategic investment in CAEPlus Inc., an early-stage company focused on the development of active liquid cooling technology designed to help data centers manage increasing heat loads driven by AI and High-Performance Computing (HPC) workloads. This investment advances Molex’s Data Center Thermal Management strategy by accelerating the innovation of CAEPlus’ BoundaryCool platform, a compact, active cooling architecture that addresses next gen GPU/ASIC thermal challenges. The strategic collaboration will support continued advancements across the BoundaryCool platform, engineered to deliver significantly higher heat transfer performance and greater reductions in CPU/GPU/TPU chip temperatures compared to passive cold plate solutions while remaining compatible with legacy data center architectures. The addition of CAEPlus technology to Molex’s comprehensive thermal management portfolio offers data center customers a broader range of solutions engineered to address the most demanding computing requirements. As part of the agreement, Molex retains exclusive licensing to apply CAEPlus technology to the Molex portfolio of pluggable I/O solutions. Financial terms of the investment were not disclosed.

EZ Form Cable announced that its product portfolio will now be sold and supported by the Times Microwave Systems sales organization. Customers will have broader access to EZ Form’s portfolio of semi-rigid, formable, and flexible coaxial cables, RF connectors, coaxial delay lines, phase-stable and phase-matched cable assemblies, non-magnetic products, and custom interconnect solutions. The broader product offering supports customers across defense, avionics, space, quantum computing, telecommunications, medical, instrumentation, and test and measurement applications. Since 1984, EZ Form Cable has built a reputation for engineering specialized RF and microwave transmission solutions for demanding environments. EZ Form also manufactures niobium-titanium, or NbTi, superconducting coaxial cable for quantum computing and cryogenic applications. EZ Form is the only U.S. manufacturer and one of only three suppliers worldwide capable of manufacturing this product. At temperatures of 4 kelvin and below, NbTi becomes superconducting, enabling near-zero attenuation for signal transmission in cryogenic environments. Both EZ Form Cable and Times Microwave Systems are part of the Amphenol family. Bringing the EZ Form portfolio into the Times Microwave Systems sales offering creates a more coordinated customer experience while expanding access to EZ Form’s specialized RF and microwave technologies across global markets.

WireMasters is expanding its support for aerospace and defense organizations across Africa, with a particular focus on South Africa, as demand grows for reliable interconnect solutions and resilient supply chain partners. South Africa’s established aerospace and defense manufacturing base, combined with ongoing investment in modernization programs, makes it a strategic focus for the company’s regional growth plans. WireMasters maintains an inventory of more than 100 million feet of wire and cable and works with leading manufacturers including TE Connectivity, Amphenol, Harbour Industries, Gore, and Raychem. Alongside its portfolio of MIL-Spec wire, cable, and interconnect solutions, the company offers value-added services, including cutting and stripping, re-spooling, laser marking, etching, striping, and twisting, helping customers streamline operations and reduce processing time.

September 2026 Connector Industry News > New Technical Resources

Mouser’s AI and Power Management Resource Hubs combine to help engineers address the central challenge in industrial edge AI deployment: designing power architectures that can reliably sustain production-grade inference at the edge. Edge AI is moving out of the laboratory and into production, and embedded systems are now expected to perform real-time analytics, predictive maintenance, and anomaly detection at the point of data collection, often with no reliable path back to cloud compute. This shift places new demands on power architecture, as inference workloads create dynamic current profiles that differ fundamentally from conventional embedded designs, while many target environments, from remote industrial assets and autonomous machines to off-grid monitoring systems, cannot depend on stable mains power. Mouser’s AI Resource Hub and Power Management Resource Hub address these demands together, covering a wide range of AI and power topics in one place.

September 2026 Connector Industry News > Association, Standards, & Certifications News

HIROSE Electric Americas is pleased to announce that Mark Kojak, President of HIROSE Electric Americas, has been named to the Electronic Components Industry Association’s (ECIA) Manufacturer Council. The ECIA Manufacturer Council is one of three councils that report directly to the ECIA Board of Directors. Made up of 13 to 15 members, the advisory group provides a dedicated forum for electronic component manufacturing leaders to discuss constituent needs, set industry agendas, and oversee priorities that strengthen the authorized supply chain. The Manufacturer Council focuses on the factory side, including production standards, technology roadmaps, and pricing/tariff pressures. The Manufacturing Council also works directly with the Global Industry Practices Committee (GIPC) to build, review, and roll out standardized operational guidelines. The ECIA Councils are structured to ensure a balanced representation across different component technologies, including semiconductor, interconnect, passive, and electro-mechanical sectors, and encompasses both small and large companies.

The ECIA’s mission is to promote and improve the business environment for the authorized sale of electronic components by manufacturers, their distributors, and independent sales representatives. The ECIA provides resources, industry training, and market intelligence for members to increase business opportunities, while enhancing the industry’s overall capacity for growth and profitability.

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