To better serve customer demand for smaller and inexpensive quartz crystals, oscillators and real time clocks (RTC) and round off its broad-based portfolio of clock generators and RTCs, MSC Vertriebs GmbH has signed an agreement to distribute Micro Crystal AG’s quartz crystal and real time clock products throughout Europe.

The Swiss company is a leading international developer and manufacturer of miniature and energy-efficient quartz crystal devices for use in a variety of consumer and industrial applications. In addition to 32.768 kHz SMD quartz crystals, which are optionally available in metal or ceramic miniature packages, Micro Crystal AG also produces a wide range of high accuracy and low power consumption RTCs including what it claims to be the world’s smallest RTC with a footprint of only 3.2 mm by 1.5 mm.

“Whether digitally compensated SMD RTCs with an accuracy of ±6 ppm over the temperature range -40° to +85°C or AECQ qualified 32 kHz quartz crystals for keyless entry and keyless go systems, Micro Crystal AG has once again demonstrated that particularly small and innovative quartz crystal products must not automatically be especially expensive. For this reason, these products, which are still predominantly developed in Switzerland, are an ideal complement to our existing product portfolio,” said Rolf Aschhoff, Sales and Marketing Director Frequency Division at MSC.

For Rüdiger Altschuh, Marketing Manager Central Europe at Micro Crystal, the distribution agreement with MSC is another important milestone in the company’s sales policy. He said, “We want to continuously increase our European market share. The support from a technically experienced and pan-European distribution partner like MSC – who is in a position to actively support customers in focus segments such as metering, healthcare, security and automotive with design-in – brings us much closer to achieving this goal.”