Global adoption of 5G and "increasingly complex technical requirements" are driving a multiyear industry transition that “plays to our strength,” said outgoing Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf on a fiscal Q1 call Wednesday. See quarterly materials here. Strong demand for 5G handsets, and growth in RF front-end, automotive and IoT, drove a record 62% year-over-year increase in revenue to $8.2 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 27. Profit jumped 165% to $2.5 billion, but “the strong performance and outlook would have been even stronger had we not been supply constrained,” said Mollenkopf.
Global semiconductor sales reached $439 billion in 2020, up 6.5% from 2019, reported the Semiconductor Industry Association Monday. Sales of $117.5 billion in Q4 were 8.3% higher than the 2019 quarter and up 3.5% sequentially. Sales in 2020 were up “moderately” from 2019, “weathering a challenging macroeconomic environment brought on by the pandemic and other factors,” said SIA CEO John Neuffer. Though global semiconductor demand is on the rise, U.S. share of worldwide chip production declined to 12% in 2020, from 37% in 1990, he said: “That disparity will only intensify without U.S. government action to level the global playing field. It’s imperative the federal government fully fund incentives for domestic chip manufacturing and investments in chip research.”
On Semiconductor's new CEO Hassane El-Khoury won't make a "short-term decision” about U.S. semiconductor production “based on politics that will hinder us from potentially achieving our maximum value creation,” he said Monday on a Q4 call. He was asked about federal incentives under the National Defense Authorization Act to promote U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and R&D (see 2101030002). He entered the role vowing to cease investments in product sectors or markets with low potential for revenue or margin growth, with a comprehensive plan of possible divestitures due by late summer. “If at the end of that first tranche" of decisions there's "alignment with where the administration is going or what state we are in, that’s great,” said El-Khoury, the former Cypress Semiconductor chief. On stock was up 6.6% to $36.77.
Jenner & Block hires Madeleine Findley from Medtronic as partner, Communications, Internet, and Technology and Data Privacy and Cybersecurity practices ... Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) appoints District of Columbia Office of Unified Communications Professional Standards and Development Chief Cleo Subido as interim director, OUC, whose last head resigned amid dispatching errors (see here) ... Blockchain Association hires Dan Spuller from Chamber of Digital Commerce as BA's director-industry affairs; Lindsey Kelleher, ex-BA intern, as policy manager; and Sarah Milby, ex-intern, as policy manager ... IHeartMedia moves Yesenia Bello to its first senior vice president-diversity and inclusion; for more broadcaster diversity efforts, see below in this section.
Intel invested $475 million in its Vietnamese subsidiary, in addition to the $1 billion it spent more than a decade ago to build a chip assembly and test manufacturing facility in Ho Chi Minh City, it blogged Tuesday. Intel Products Vietnam shipped more than 2 billion units of components to customers globally through the end of 2020, it said. It’s the largest U.S. tech investment in Vietnam, it said. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative under the Trump administration found Vietnam’s allegedly improper devaluation of the dong against the dollar actionable under the Trade Act Section 301, leaving it to the next USTR to decide whether to impose tariffs on Hanoi (see 2101150052).
Silicon Labs and Edge Impulse are collaborating on machine learning on the chipmaker’s EFR32 wireless SoCs and EFM32 microcontrollers, they said Wednesday.
House Judiciary Committee Republicans added nine new members, announced ranking member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Wednesday: Darrell Issa of California, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Chip Roy of Texas, Dan Bishop of North Carolina, Michelle Fischbach of Minnesota, Victoria Spartz of Indiana, Scott Fitzgerald of Wisconsin, Cliff Bentz of Oregon and Burgess Owens of Utah.
Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel moves Michele Ellison to acting general counsel and Joel Taubenblatt to Wireless Bureau acting chief; Tom Johnson steps down as general counsel and continues at FCC, now at Wireless Bureau, where outgoing Chief Don Stockdale moves to Office of Economics and Analytics; Rosenworcel also makes staff appointments and "special designations to the Office of the Chairwoman": acting Chief of Staff Travis Litman, acting Chief Policy Adviser Kate Black and acting Chief Counsel Umair Javed, all worked in her commissioner's office; acting Special Adviser to the Chairwoman D’wana Terry, who remains acting director, Office of Workplace Diversity; acting Special Adviser to the Chairwoman Sanford Williams, who remains director, Office of Communications Business Opportunities; acting Special Adviser to the Chairwoman Trent Harkrader, also remaining deputy chief, Wireline Bureau; acting Legal Adviser-Media Holly Saurer, joining from Media Bureau; acting Legal Adviser-Consumer, Enforcement and International David Strickland, from Enforcement Bureau; acting Legal Adviser-Wireline Ramesh Nagarajan, from Wireline Bureau; acting Legal Adviser-Wireless and Public Safety Ethan Lucarelli, from Wireless Bureau; acting Staff Assistant Aurelle Porter, from then-Commissioner Rosenworcel’s office; and acting Confidential Assistant Andi Roane, who worked for office of Commissioner Nathan Simington.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. expects 2021 global smartphone shipments to increase 10% year on year and 5G handsets to take 35% market share this year, up from 18% in 2020, said CEO C.C. Wei on a Q4 earnings call Thursday. TSMC is a major components supplier to the iPhone 12. The “silicon content” of 5G smartphones will continue to increase compared with their 4G counterparts, said Wei. “We continue to expect faster penetration of 5G smartphones” compared with 4G penetration rates historically, as 5G handsets “benefit from the significant performance” upgrade to drive more artificial intelligence applications and “more cloud services,” he said. TSMC views 5G as a “multiyear megatrend that will enable a world where digital computation is increasingly ubiquitous.” That’s expected, he said, to “fuel the growth” long-term of all four of TSMC’s business “platforms” -- smartphones, high-performance computing (HPC), automotive and IoT. “As we enter the 5G era, a smarter and more intelligent world will require massive increases in computation power and greater need for energy-efficient computing, and therefore, require leading-edge technologies.” TSMC is looking to HPC as an “increasingly important driver” of the company’s “incremental revenue growth,” he said.
Regulators cleared three items circulated by Chairman Ajit Pai last week -- opening the 12 GHz band to 5G, proposing bidding procedures for a 2.5 GHz auction and unveiling the first round of selections for the agency's Connected Care pilot program (see 2101060061). Pai, who leaves next week, effectively forced a vote.