Market leader Sony captured 41% share of the smartphone image sensor business valued at more than $7 billion in global first-half revenue, reported Strategy Analytics Monday. Industry revenue grew more than 10% year over year, it said. The top three vendors -- Sony, Samsung and OmniVision -- had more than 80% share collectively. Introduction of high-resolution and large-format image sensors from major vendors is expected to boost market “revenue opportunities,” said analyst Stephen Entwistle: But “supply fluctuations” of high- and low-pixel image sensors “continue to challenge the growth prospects.”

IFixit is “not mad, just disappointed,” after its iPhone 13 Pro teardown showed the smartphone got low grades for repairability, said the right-to-repair advocacy company Monday. The “bad news” is about Apple’s “newest parts-pairing problem,” it said. “If you replace your screen, Apple kills your Face ID” facial-recognition authentication feature, “unless they control the repair,” said iFixit. “We swapped sensors and front-facing camera hardware across multiple brand-new units, restarting each one, but nothing worked. Fixing your own iPhone screen could trap you years in the past, in the passcode times.” IFixit says an Apple-licensed tech told it that the iPhone maker is treating the problem as a bug “to be fixed in a future iOS release.” If Apple “withholds a major feature from anybody who doesn’t take their busted screen straight to them,” that would mark a “very, very bad sign from a company that moves the tech market,” it said. Apple didn’t comment.

Dialog terminated a strategic alliance agreement with Energous, the RF wireless power company said Thursday. Dialog invested $10 million in November 2016 and another $15 million in June 2017 (see 1706290019) and was the exclusive component supplier of Energous’ WattUp technology. Energous had agreed to use Dialog as the exclusive supplier of its wire-free charging technology for specified fields of use, subject to certain exceptions, it said. Both agreed on revenue sharing and to collaborate on commercialization of licensed products with each retaining its intellectual property. Terms of the seven-year agreement will continue through a wind-down ending in September 2024, and exclusivity ended, it said. Renesas acquired Dialog last month for about $5.6 billion. They didn't comment Friday.

Android features that began rolling out this week include accessibility functions that allow users to control smartphone functions with facial gestures, blogged Google Thursday. Camera Switches turns a phone’s front-facing camera into a switch, replacing a keyboard, mouse or touch as an input option, said Angana Ghosh, product lead-Gboard.

NEC and Xilinx are collaborating on NEC’s 5G radio units for global deployment beginning in 2022, they said Thursday. The radios will support a wide range of 5G frequencies, including C-band spectrum, they said. Embedded Xilinx componentry will enable advanced signal processing and beamforming, and add open radio access network support, they said. Beamforming is an electromagnetic technique for promoting faster, more reliable 5G connections.

Comcast is beginning rollout of the XiOne wireless streaming device to U.S. Xfinity Flex customers, said the MVPD Wednesday. The “plug-and-play” device supports Wi-Fi 6, 4K, HDR, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. The voice remote supplied with the device is geared to streamers, the company said. The device launched first with Comcast’s Sky Q customers in Italy and Germany and was designed as a global entertainment device, it said. Comcast plans to make the device available via more channels and to its Xfinity X1 customers and syndication partners in the future.

Hopping onto the work-at-home trend, Facebook is pitching its portable video calling devices as videoconferencing tools. The company announced support Tuesday for Microsoft Teams, planned for December, for its Portal touch-based instruments. The company is creating a new account type, Portal for Business, with built-in Microsoft security, for small-to midsize businesses that will be available for Facebook work products over the coming year, it said. The service is in closed beta. Portal for Business also supports Zoom, Webex, GoToMeeting, BlueJeans and Workplace, it said. Facebook also announced Tuesday it's taking preorders for two new Portal video calling devices with an Oct. 19 ship date. A portable model, the 10-inch Portal Go ($199), has a 12-megapixel camera with ultrawide field of view and a speaker. Portal+, with a 14-inch HD tilting display ($349) also has a 12-megapixel ultrawide angle camera; it adds stereo speakers. Facebook referenced iHeartRadio, Pandora and Spotify as streaming music service options. Users can view Facebook and Instagram photos from a smartphone camera roll and share them with friends and family via shared albums on the smart displays, it said.

The semiconductor shortage shows major supply chain disruptions “don’t have quick fixes,” reported Bain & Co. Monday. The chips crunch is “unlikely to be the last tech supply chain disruption that affects multiple industries, as more products across sectors rely on components that share the same manufacturing capacity,” the consultant said. The “breadth and depth” of this shortage’s impact on the tech industry and the global economy is unprecedented, but “the reality is we’re going to see more of these disruptive events,” said the report: The shortage’s “hard lessons” show that “navigating future disruptions calls for a more holistic and proactive strategy, one that requires closer collaboration between suppliers and their customers.”

Panasonic completed its acquisition of the 80% share of supply chain software company Blue Yonder that it didn’t buy in July 2020, said the Japanese parent company Friday. It announced the $7.1 billion transaction April 23 with the goal of using Blue Yonder to enhance its response to COVID-19-induced supply chain management disruptions. Panasonic’s U.S. subsidiary will run Blue Yonder through its connected solutions business. It will keep the Blue Yonder branding and leadership team intact, it said.

Lack of foundry capacity is hampering growth in an “exploding” IoT market, Silicon Labs President Matt Johnson told us Wednesday. The challenge to increase chipmaking capacity is exacerbated by the long lead times required for fabrication plants, Johnson said. Demand has been increasing and capacity hasn’t grown at the same pace, he said. “Assuming there’s not a macro shift in demand, we’re looking at least a couple of years here of demand-supply imbalance.” It's not just the pandemic: The volatile supply chain phenomenon is the result of several years of demand and supply imbalance, Johnson said. “It’s hard to order anything right now and have it not be delayed,” he said, calling the situation “painful” for semiconductor companies. Johnson becomes CEO when Tyson Tuttle steps down Jan. 1; see our report here.