Speakers at the Incompas Policy Summit expressed hope Tuesday that the FCC will act soon to allow use of the 12 GHz band for 5G. Incompas has been a leading member of the 5G for 12 GHz Coalition, which seeks new rules for the band (see 2107080055).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s December decision upholding the FCC’s 6 GHz order firms up the agency’s authority as “the expert agency” on spectrum, said FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks during the Fierce Wireless virtual Wi-Fi summit Monday. Other speakers said use of 6 GHz is growing and will be critical to better Wi-Fi.
Demand "far outpaced" the capacity improvements and increased shipments that Microchip Technology achieved in fiscal Q3 ended Dec. 31, said CEO Ganesh Moorthy on a quarterly call Thursday. Microchip draws most of its revenue from sales of microcontrollers for a wide range of consumer and industrial tech applications. Its “unsupported backlog,” defined as undeliverable orders from customers unprotected by long-term supply agreements climbed significantly, compared with the unsupported backlog exiting the September quarter, he said. Despite 30% year-over-year revenue growth to $1.76 billion, “we exited the December quarter with the highest unsupported backlog ever,” said Moorthy: “We continue to experience constraints in all our internal and external factories and their related manufacturing supply chains. ... We continue to ramp our internal factories as fast as possible, and we are working closely with our supply chain partners to provide wafer foundry, assembly, test and materials to secure additional capacity wherever possible.” But judging from the magnitude of the current demand-supply imbalance, plus “the rate at which we are able to bring on new capacity, we continue to expect that we will remain supply-constrained throughout 2022 and possibly beyond that,” said the CEO. After five quarters of the semiconductor crunch and now into the sixth, “there is really no line of sight to having demand/supply coming back into some form of equilibrium,” he said.
The House passed semiconductor-funding legislation 222-210 on a largely party-line vote Friday. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and lawmakers are looking ahead to conference talks to combine elements of the newly House-passed America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology and Economic Strength Act (HR-4521) and Senate-passed U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (S-1260) (see 2202010001).
DLA Piper hires from SpaceX Matt Botwin to Telecom practice as a principal; his focus is satellite and space ... MPA hires from Comcast's NBCUniversal Kathy Banuelos as senior vice president-state government affairs, effective March 21; Vans Stevenson, who led the association's State Government Affairs Department, becomes senior adviser.
Semiconductor supply availability at Nokia “continues tight,” said CEO Pekka Lundmark on a Q4 call Wednesday. “There are still going to be, at least in the first half of this year, situations where people live more or less hand to mouth.” Nokia finished 2021 with 3% “top-line growth” over 2022, he said. “That growth could have been a bit higher, had there been more components -- semiconductors especially.” The chip crunch caused a “revenue shift” from the second half of 2021 to 2022, he said. “We are not out of the woods yet. We have managed this very challenging situation very well without any major casualties or any major customer losses.” But the situation “calls for continuous day-to-day management,” he said. Nokia American depositary receipts closed down 4.2% Thursday at $5.72.
Chip demand is “extremely strong across the board,” said Qualcomm Chief Financial Officer Akash Palkhiwala. “We are continuing to see demand outpacing supply.” It put second-sourcing plans in place “very early in the process,” he said. “We have three second-sourcing parts, especially in the mid-high tiers that are shipping at scale now, and that shows up in our financial performance.” The worldwide chip crunch is easing, but “we would ship more if we could,” said CEO Cristiano Amon. Qualcomm is standing by its previous forecasts that the industry will ship more than 750 million 5G handsets in 2022, which would be about 40% growth from 2021, said Palkhiwala on a call Wednesday for fiscal Q1 ended Dec. 26. The stock closed down 4.8% Thursday at $179.10.
House Republican opposition to Democratic chips legislation is warranted because the majority didn’t follow “regular order,” lead Senate sponsor Todd Young, R-Ind., told reporters Thursday (see 2202010083). America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology and Economic Strength Act (HR-4521) doesn’t reflect Republican ideas or input, said Young. Hopefully, conference will deliver something more “reflective” of what passed in the Senate, he added: A “number” of House Republicans are open to supporting what comes out of conference.
Lumos/NorthState adds from USTelecom Mike Saperstein as head-government affairs and general counsel; Nora Mitchell from Segra becomes corporate controller; Saperstein succeeds Mary McDermott, who retires ... NTIA names Common Sense Media Washington Director April McClain-Delaney deputy assistant secretary, Commerce-communications and information; and former Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke as special representative for broadband.
Europe must boost its world-leading role in telecom and technical standard-setting by addressing the growing challenge from China, the U.S. and other non-European players, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said at a Wednesday briefing. The European Commission unveiled a standardization strategy and proposed changes to the regulation. The approach "aims to strengthen the EU's global competitiveness, to enable a resilient, green and digital economy and to enshrine democratic values in technology applications." EU wants to ensure its leadership in several areas, including semiconductors, and to create a Europe more open to new opportunities, Breton said. Some standards bodies, such as the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and European Electrotechnical Committee for Standardization (CENELEC), have "European" in their names, but large numbers of non-European groups with voting rights unduly influenced their work, he said. The new strategy will ensure that standards meet EU needs and political strategies, and will focus on how standards bodies are governed. It will examine Europe's global leadership in international standards organizations such as ITU, and it calls for more attention to research and innovation and on encouraging skills to attract people to the field. Asked for an example of where standards were defined under pressure from non-European players, Breton cited a 2020 ETSI proposal, nixed by U.S. and Chinese companies, to set standards to ensure the compatibility of smartphones in Europe with the Galileo global navigation satellite system. Breton stressed the EU standards and rules in place for different sectors won't change but will become more visible. The problem isn't that European enterprises haven't been innovative enough, it's that "we've been too naive": Europe has always had an open standards-setting process under the belief that openness would entice companies to set up in Europe. However, he said, "we can't be open at any price." Europe needs faster approval for new standards, more inclusiveness and a clearer definition of the EC's role in the industry-led standardization process, said European Parliament Internal Market Committee Chair Anna Cavazzini, of the Greens/European Free Alliance and Germany. CEN and CENELEC cheered the strategy.