Premier Farnell and Eric Lidow of International Rectifier took the top honours at this year's Elektras - the European Electronics Industry Awards.

Presented this week at Munich in Germany, the awards honour the top achievers in the industry.

Eric Lidow, founder and chairman of the board at International Rectifier, took the final, and arguably the most prestigious, award of the night, being given the lifetime achievement award.

Lidow, who founded IR in 1947, was born in Vilnius, Lithuania, graduating from the Technical University of Berlin with a degree in Electrical Engineering.

He has an impressive list of 'firsts' to his name, including the silicon controlled rectifier and the Hexfet, along with other notable contributions to semiconductor manufacturing and power semiconductors.

The second top award - company of the year - went to Premier Farnell. The company award is chosen from all the winners of the 13 individual awards.

Pictured left are (left to right) awards compere Dominic Holland; Robert Grant, executive v-p at sponsor International Rectifier; Ferdinand Leicher of Premier Farnell; and Richard Wilson, editor of Electronics Weekly.

No less important were the 13 individual acheivement awards:

• Manufacturer of the year - TSMC Europe
• Supplier of the year - Imagination Technologies
• Distributor of the year - Abacus Group
• Product of the year - Tektronix
• System-on-chip award - Toshiba
• Semiconductor of the year - Wolfson Microelectronics
• Embedded systems innovation - RF Engines
• Investing in people award - National Semiconductor
• Environmental award - RS Components
• R&D award - Quantum Research
• Design application of the year - Triteq
• Online business award - Farnell InOne
• Start-up of the year - Deepstream Technologies

Electronics Weekly would like to congratulate all the winners, and just as importantly we would like to thank all those firms that entered the awards. The awards only work if companies enter, and it was great to see hundreds of entries of a really high standard.