Apple announced the M1 chip, its most powerful ever, designed specifically for the Mac. The SoC, with 16 billion transistors, is the first personal computer chip built using a 5-nanometer process, Apple said Tuesday. The SoC delivers 3.5 times faster central processing unit performance, six times faster graphics performance and 15 times faster machine learning, said the company, with twice the battery life.
Microchip Technology halted all Huawei shipments in mid-September in compliance with the further Commerce Department export restrictions on the Chinese tech giant that were imposed in August (see 2008170043), said President-Chief Operating Officer Ganesh Moorthy on a Thursday investor call for fiscal Q2, ended Sept. 30. Huawei generated about 2% of Microchip’s Q2 revenue, down sequentially from Q1, said Moorthy, who will succeed Steve Sanghi as CEO March 1 as Sanghi transitions to executive chairman. Microchip is working with Commerce “to apply for licenses for products and technologies that we believe have no impact” on U.S. national security, he said. “We do not know if or when such licenses may be granted,” so Microchip assumes no Huawei revenue in the fiscal third quarter ending Dec. 31, he said. Huawei's push to complete manufacturing of all products before the shipment ban took effect caused wide-scale supply chain "constraints" during the September quarter, he said. The rush of Huawei’s competitors to replace the business Huawei lost “further stressed the supply chain,” he said. The “ongoing shift” of semiconductor manufacturing out of China to avoid the Section 301 tariffs also pressured “the capacity in other Asian countries where we manufacture through our partners,” he said. The supply chain disruptions "are continuing into the December quarter,” he said.
Q3 semiconductor sales increased 11% globally from Q2 and 5.8% from the 2019 quarter to $113.6 billion, reported the Semiconductor Industry Association Friday evening. The “solid” Q3 gains reflected “normal seasonal trends and increased demand for semiconductor-enabled products, but significant market uncertainty remains due to the pandemic and other macroeconomic factors,” said SIA CEO John Neuffer. September sales to the Americas rose 20.1%.
Q3 revenue in the communications “end market” at On Semiconductor declined 7% from the 2019 quarter, said CEO Keith Jackson on a Monday investor call (also see Q3 here.) The chipmaker experienced strong growth in its 5G infrastructure sector, but “our smartphone business declined year over year, in part due to geopolitical factors related to a customer,” said Jackson, obviously referencing Huawei. Communications revenue growth in Q4 likely will be flat or down quarter over quarter, “due to an expected revenue decline from customer-specific geopolitical factors,” he said. “In Q3, there certainly was an impact” from the mid-September halt of shipments to Huawei due to the Commerce Department’s tightened export restrictions on the Chinese smartphone OEM, said Jackson. In Q4, until Commerce grants export licenses authorizing the resumption of shipments, “there is no business at all” with Huawei, he said. “They were one of the top customers.” Jackson thinks “there will be more reluctance” next year among Chinese smartphone OEM customers “to accept sole-source positions from U.S.-based companies as a result of the trade tensions” between the U.S. and China: “They’re very wise economic buyers, and they’re going to do the best thing for their company, but they certainly don’t want to be completely reliant on a U.S. supplier.” The Huawei business that On lost shifted quickly to European competitors, he said.
FCC Wireless Bureau promotes Charles Mathias from associate chief to deputy chief ... Fiber Broadband Association board taps Gary Bolton, ex-Adtran, as president-CEO, succeeding Lisa Youngers, who's leaving "for a new industry opportunity" ... Internet Association hires Christina Martin, ex-Corn Refiners Association, as senior vice president-communications and public affairs ... Association for Digital Asset Markets hires Michelle Bond from Ripple as CEO, succeeding Jeffrey Blockinger.
Dialog Semiconductor's DA7280 high-definition haptics driver is being used by Alps Alpine with its linear resonant actuators for interactive experiences in vehicles, Dialog said Wednesday. This addresses a growing trend in the automotive industry for dynamic control panels that use haptics for immediate driver feedback, it said. The combination creates a vibrational force that's said to be 10 times that generated by smartphones.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said Tuesday the agency thinks it's on a strong legal foundation for whatever challenge may come after its 3-2 approval of a net neutrality remand order, despite an expected legal challenge or reconsideration petition (see 2010150026). The two Democratic commissioners dissented. There also were full or partial dissents to decisions ending some ILEC unbundling and resale requirements with varying transition periods for different network elements, a robocalls enforcement order wireless infrastructure rules and the 5G Fund creation (see 2010270034). But there was no clash on other orders. No approved order texts were released Tuesday.
Broadcasters see the progress of the ATSC 3.0 rollout as one of several promising signs for the future of broadcast TV, despite the difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic, said industry officials at the virtual NAB Show New York event Thursday. COVID-19 is “a double-edged sword” because the increase in TV and over-the-top viewing brought by the pandemic plays to 3.0 strengths, said John Taylor, LG Electronics senior vice president-public affairs and communications.
The “mid to high tier” in smartphones “is the place to be” in the test solutions business, said Teradyne CEO Mark Jagiela on a Q3 investor call Wednesday. “These phones are seeing disproportionate growth and complexity related to multiple high-density camera arrays and the associated processing power and storage to manage this data.” The company supplies test and automation equipment to semiconductor makers and smartphone OEMs, with Apple, Qualcomm and Samsung among top customers. The migration to 5G is a big “complexity driver” in smartphones, said Jagiela. “These high tier phones are early adopters of the extra silicon needed to enable these features.” Fewer than 250 million phones will be 5G-enabled in 2020, “and only a fraction of those” will support millimeter-wave, he said. “So despite the bump in 2020, we are still in the very early stages of 5G adoption.”
Tension in relations between the U.S. and China on technology issues such as data security, privacy and telecom gear are making life complicated for some U.S. companies, experts told the Technology Policy Institute. They generally agreed aspects of the current U.S. approach may be unique to this administration and may have shortcomings. Neither the White House nor China's Embassy in Washington commented Wednesday, when the TPI video was released as part of its ongoing conference.