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.

Motorola began taking preorders Thursday for the moto g stylus mid-tier 4G smartphone. The $299 6.8-inch phone has a two-day battery life and a built-in stylus that integrates with the Moto Note app, the company emailed Thursday. The camera array includes a 50-megapixel front camera, 118-degree ultra-side-angle lens and macro lens for closeups, it said. The phone will be available unlocked from Amazon.com, Best Buy, Motorola.com and Walmart. Consumer Cellular and Cricket will offer the device in coming months, it said.

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.

The Aerospace Industries Association and members updated the FCC on the group’s 2018 proposal for rules allowing use of the 5030-5091 MHz band for drones (see 2110130044), in a call with an aide to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “AIA ... reinforced its understanding that the 5030-5091 MHz band is the only spectrum in the U.S. dedicated exclusively” to drone command and control, said a filing posted Wednesday in RM-11798. AIA said it “anticipates current and future regulatory needs for the movement of people and of sizable payloads.” Aura Networks, Boeing, Collins Aerospace and Lockheed Martin were among participants.

IBM bought Sentaca to strengthen its cloud consulting business. "Our goal is to help modern networks thrive in an open, hybrid cloud environment that will bring edge and 5G to life," said John Granger, senior vice president-IBM Consulting, Tuesday.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission will host an online test and evaluation forum March 31 at 9 a.m. EDT on consumer products using AI and machine-learning technologies, said Friday’s Federal Register. The forum “will focus on existing testing and evaluation capabilities and the need to establish an adequate methodology to determine if AI/ML-related technologies contribute to an unreasonable risk that could injure consumers,” said CPSC. Those interested in presenting information at the forum should register by Feb. 25, all others by March 21, it said.

The “continuous 5G migration in more regions” will be a big 2022 growth driver for MediaTek, the largest smartphone SoC maker, CEO Rick Tsai told a Q4 call Thursday. MediaTek expects global 5G smartphone penetration to exceed 50% of handsets this year, he said. The 5G penetration rate in China is the highest at 80%, and “we expect 5G unit growth to mainly come from other regions,” he said. With MediaTek’s “early readiness” of 5G modems for Wi-Fi 6E, “we have been able to penetrate the notebook market successfully,” said Tsai. Its partnerships with Intel and Advanced Micro Devices “helped us build a strong designing pipeline with all major global OEMs,” he said. MediaTek estimates more than 2 billion devices sold globally in 2021, including smartphones, smart TVs, notebooks and tablets, used MediaTek, said Tsai. It forecasts its total addressable market will grow to $140 billion in 2024 from $80 billion in 2021, he said.

Energous received regulatory approval for its 1W WattUp PowerBridge transmitter from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, the wireless charging company said Wednesday. In addition to sending power, WattUp PowerBridge transmitters can be a data link for connected IoT devices such as sensors, electronic shelf labels, trackers, IoT tags and batteryless devices, the company said.

Commerce’s Sept. 24 request for information into the global semiconductor shortage (see 2109230038) found semiconductor demand “continues to far outstrip supply,” reported the department Tuesday. “Median demand for chips highlighted by buyers was as much as 17% higher in 2021 than 2019, and buyers aren’t seeing commensurate increases in the supply.” Secretary Gina Raimondo blogged that it's “essential that Congress move swiftly” to pass the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act. The median inventory of semiconductor products highlighted by buyers fell to fewer than five days in 2021 from 40 days in 2019, said Commerce. Inventories are even smaller in “key industries,” like broadband, it said. The agency will “capitalize” on the data gleaned from the RFI “to engage industry on node-specific problem-solving in the coming weeks,” said the report.

T-Mobile users sampled by Opensignal were connected to 5G 36.3% of the time, compared with 22.5% of the time for AT&T and 10.5% for Verizon, said a Monday report. T-Mobile also beat the other two on the reach of their 5G networks. AT&T and Verizon were roughly tied and beat T-Mobile on the “5G Video Experience” seen by customers. Verizon was tops on “5G Games Experience.”