Semiconductor Industry Association CEO John Neuffer was unfazed by criticism of fully funding the Chips Act to promote long-term leadership and resilience in U.S. chipmaking -- as last week’s White House supply chain report recommended (see our report here). This won't become a handout to wealthy chip companies and will be the incentive the industry seeks to boost U.S. standing in global semiconductors, he said. The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (S-1260) cleared the Senate last week by “a very strong bipartisan vote” with $52 billion in U.S. chipmaking and R&D incentives, he told an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation webinar Wednesday. “Now the battle goes to the House, and we’re very optimistic that something good is going to come out of that, so that the president will have a bill to sign.” The way that Chips Act funding in S-1260 is structured, “sure, there’s going to be grants involved, but there’s going to be far more investments required from private sector players,” said Neuffer. “These are solid companies that have to have a lot of capital to be able to do these kinds of investments.” The most “leading-edge” fabs cost $30 billion to build, he said. No policymaker should “adopt a goal of decoupling” U.S. chip production from global supply chains that are heavily concentrated in East Asia, said Neuffer. He cited a September SIA-Boston Consulting Group report.

Americans own on average eight smart devices, and they plan to buy four more over the next 12 months, said a Reviews.org survey of 1,000 consumers. Categories with the highest purchase intent are smartphones, smart speakers, smart hub displays, Wi-Fi-enabled headphones and smartwatches. About 85% of consumers own two or more smart devices, the same percentage as those owning smartphones. Over a third of U.S. households have a smart speaker, 26% a smart TV, 15% video doorbells and 26% smartwatches.

National Cable Television Cooperative members can continue to receive the MobiTV IPTV service, now owned and operated by TiVo, under a master services agreement announced Tuesday. It includes a managed pay-TV service, a shared offering leveraging TiVo software that enables customers to navigate linear, on demand and network DVR services, said the Xperi subsidiary.

Smartphone trade-in specialist ecoATM Gazelle raised $75 million in “new growth equity” from existing investor Cowen Sustainable Advisors to speed its global expansion and support its “product extensions,” said the company Monday. It will use the funds to build and deploy thousands of “automated retail fulfillment kiosks” across the U.S., Europe and Asia and support new market launches “with increased multi-channel marketing campaigns and operational investments,” it said. The company has collected 28 million used smartphones, “indicative of the growing and critical demand for technology recycling,” it said.

Right-to-repair advocates called New York Senate passage Thursday of the Digital Fair Repair Act (S-4104) the first measure dedicated to consumer tech repair to clear any state's chamber. Though a matching Assembly bill failed to clear committee on the last day of the legislature’s 2021 session, the Senate's 51-12 bipartisan OK “speaks to the support right to repair gets when it receives a fair vote, against tech lobbyists’ wishes,” emailed Kerry Sheehan, iFixit U.S. policy lead. S-4104 would prohibit consumer tech OEMs from withholding diagnostics and other repair materials from consumers or service shops. Last month’s FTC report saying OEM restrictions on independent third-party repairs harmed consumer protections in the 1975 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (see 2105070013) “is a huge help across the board in helping lawmakers understand how baseless opposition arguments against right to repair really are,” Sheehan told us. “We'll continue to see it as an extremely useful resource for educating lawmakers.” Advocates are unfazed by a matching Assembly bill's failure to clear committee, she said: “Some opposition lobbyists were able to convince Assembly leadership not to bring the bill forward for a floor vote this year." Backers in the Assembly have "a dedicated bill sponsor" in Patricia Fahy (D), "who is committed to moving right to repair forward,” said Sheehan. Right to repair was one of Fahy's top priorities for the end of the legislative session, emailed a spokesperson Friday. Fahy's office hosted two town halls and "created a coalition bigger than any existing one," including 30 Assembly co-sponsors, he said. "We are extremely frustrated with the lack of movement we’ve received based on the support and work put into it." The tech industry "will likely be back bigger and stronger next year" to oppose a measure in the Assembly, "so we’re already planning how to keep the issue alive in the off-session and build even more momentum surrounding it next session," he said. CTA didn't comment.

Garmin asked for a tweak to the draft order that would let companies market RF devices pending FCC authorization, in conversations with aides to Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Nathan Simington. Garmin sought “clarification that the draft rule allows manufacturers that distribute products through unaffiliated retailers to take advantage of the proposed pre-sales flexibility by affixing the required temporary labels only to the shrink-wrapped pallet, sealed shipping container, sealed carton, or other enclosure containing multiple units and not to individual units of the product,” said filings posted Thursday (see here and here) in docket 20-382.

Global semiconductor sales reached $41.8 billion in April, increasing 1.9% from March and 21.7% from April 2020, reported the Semiconductor Industry Association Wednesday. “Global demand for semiconductors remained high in April, as reflected by rising sales across a range of chip products and throughout each of the world’s major regional markets,” said SIA President John Neuffer. “The global chip market is projected to grow substantially in 2021 and 2022 as semiconductors become increasingly integral to the game-changing technologies of today and the future.” Year-over-year sales increased 25.7% in China, 24.3% in Asia Pacific, 20.1% in Europe, 17.6% in Japan and 14.3% in the Americas, said SIA.

April imports to the U.S. of laptops, tablets and smartphones were little changed sequentially and double digits higher than April 2020, per Census data we accessed Wednesday through the International Trade Commission. The 59.81 million smartphones shipped here in 2021's first four months were 25% above the 47.89 million handsets in the year-earlier period. April smartphone imports to the U.S. from all countries under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 8517.12.00 reached 15.09 million, up 27%. China generated 77% of April smartphone imports.

Marvell Technology expects a “strong second-half ramp” compared with the first half in its networking business. That stems from the “increase in 5G adoption in the U.S. and other regions,” said CEO Matt Murphy on a call Monday for fiscal Q1 ended May 1.

Global smartphone sales to end users, rebounding from their “steep decline” in 2020, grew 26% year over year in Q1 to just under 378 million handsets, reported Gartner Monday. “The improvement in consumer outlook, sustained learning and working from home, along with pent-up demand from 2020 boosted sales of smartphones in the first quarter,” said Anshul Gupta. Consumers started spending on discretionary items as the pandemic situation improved in many parts of the world and markets opened up,” said the analyst. Top-three vendors Samsung, Apple and Xiaomi maintained their positions. Samsung’s launch of under-$150 handsets boosted its unit sales globally, as did early shipments of its flagship 5G smartphones, said Gartner.