CTIA announced a voluntary, common industry standard for evaluating pre-owned wireless devices, established by its Reverse Logistics and Service Quality Working Group. “This collaboration by America’s wireless industry will make the grading of wireless devices more straightforward and consistent,” said Tom Sawanobori, CTIA chief technology officer, Monday. “The standard will help create uniformity.”

Global semiconductor shipments increased 13.7 percent in 2018 from 2017 to $468.8 billion, said the Semiconductor Industry Association Monday. Q4 shipments increased 0.6 percent to $114.7 billion, but declined 8.2 percent sequentially from Q3, said SIA. “Global demand for semiconductors reached a new high in 2018, with annual sales hitting a high-water mark and total units shipped topping 1 trillion for the first time.” Though market growth slowed in 2018's second half, the industry’s “long-term outlook remains strong,” it said. Memory was the industry’s largest 2018 category, sales growing 27.4 percent to $158 billion in 2018, including a 36.4 percent increase in shipments of DRAM products, it said. Despite the Chinese economic slowdown, China led all regions in semiconductor market growth, with monetary shipments there increasing 20.5 percent, said SIA. Shipments in the Americas jumped 16.4 percent, while Europe was up 12.1 percent, Japan 9.2 percent and Asia Pacific 6.1 percent. Apple and Samsung remained the world's top two semiconductor customers in 2018, with 17.9 percent collective total share, down 1.6 points from 2017, Gartner reported Monday. Huawei increased its chip spending by 45 percent, "jumping in front of Dell and Lenovo to the third spot," it said.

The Coalition of E-Reader Manufacturers asked for an extra 30 days to prepare a study on technological development, marketing and consumer use trends in the basic e-reader market. The FCC will use the information to determine whether to leave in place an exclusion from advanced communications services (ACS) accessibility rules, the coalition said. The report was due Friday, required by a 2016 order from Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, which provided a three-year extension. Additional time would “ensure development of a complete record and thereby serve the public interest,” said a filing posted Monday in docket 10-213. The 2013 petition seeking a waiver said members were Amazon, Kobo and Sony.

Silicon Labs said Wednesday it’s sampling its Wi-Fi portfolio of modules and transceivers. The Wireless Gecko products are said to use half the Wi-Fi power of competitors, have built-in security features and superior RF blocking performance and offer a simplified operating system, developer tools and certification process. The Wi-Fi modules are pre-certified for operation worldwide to reduce development time, effort and risk, Silicon Labs said. Applications include battery-operated IP security cameras, point-of-sale scanners, asset trackers and personal medical devices, it said. Production quantities are due in Q2, it said.

Samsung added to its nonvolatile memory SSD portfolio with a 2 TB drive targeted to tech enthusiasts, gamers and IT professionals. The 970 Evo Plus, powered by Samsung’s V-NAND technology, was built for demanding processing tasks such as 4K content editing, 3D modeling, simulation and performance gaming, said the company. Capacities are 250 GB, 500 GB and 1 TB, starting at $89; a 2-TB version will be available in April, it said.

Semiconductor company Wiliot demonstrated a battery-free Bluetooth sensor tag at NRF 2019 with applications for manufacturers, retailers and consumers. A Wiliot chip glued to an antenna printed on plastic or paper can authenticate proximity of a product by transmitting an encrypted serial number along with weight and temperature data from a device the size of a postage stamp, said the company. The tags use nanowatt computing to communicate with devices enabled by Bluetooth Low Energy, such as smartphones, Wi-Fi access points and IoT devices that connect to digital displays, Wi-Fi and LTE cellular networks. Bluetooth tags can be embedded in the production phase of consumer goods, allowing real-time tracking through the manufacturing process, to the warehouse and from the store to the end consumer. At retail, the Wiliot transponder can overcome limits of human-readable product information on packaging, sending information to a consumer’s phone or displays, it said. Among use cases: Consumers can communicate with products to get instructions and reminders of how to use them, and Wiliot-enabled containers can “automatically reorder themselves when empty,” said the company. Valuable products using the technology can be tracked in case they are lost or stolen, it said, and clothing with Wiliot tags can communicate with washing machines to ensure the correct washing cycle. The company announced a $30 million Series B funding round with investors including Amazon Web Services, Avery Dennison and Samsung. Wiliot’s strategy for battery-free Bluetooth transponders, “which sense and communicate without needing specific action by consumers,” matches with Avery Dennison’s intelligent label strategy, said Francisco Melo, Avery's general manager-global RFID.

FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel raised concerns about the halt in equipment certifications caused by the federal shutdown. Industry officials said last week that has emerged as a concern with the FCC mostly shuttered since Thursday (see 1901040008). “Go ahead, take a look at the back of the nearest electronic device. You'll see an @fcc number,” Rosenworcel tweeted Tuesday. “The agency certifies every innovative mobile phone, television, and computer that emits radio frequency before they can head to market. Guess what is not happening during the shutdown?”

Google Fiber wants out of FCC accessibility rules for its set-top boxes, said a petition for limited waiver posted in docket 12-108 Thursday. It's “only with respect to certain functions required by the rules and only for a limited time,” the petition said. The waiver would apply only to “less frequently used functions” of activating video description, displaying or activating current configuration options, and adjusting caption displays. Google Fiber wants the waiver “until it completes the transition of its more traditional ‘set-top boxes’ to an operating system capable of full compliance” not more than two years: “Since Google Fiber has a limited number of video subscribers to begin with, it expects few if any of its customers to require access to these particular functions.” The leeway “will permit Google Fiber to continue to make audibly accessible the most important and frequently accessed functions without having to retrofit end-of-life equipment,” the company said.

USB-C adoption has grown four times faster in the four years since its inception than any of the three previous generations of USB connectors, Hassane El-Khoury, CEO of USB components supplier Cypress Semiconductor, told a Barclays investors conference Thursday. “The acceleration is there,” but the USB-C market is “still in the early stages of hyper-growth, because now the ecosystem is starting to catch up,” said El-Khoury. “Now you see more printers” with USB-C, as well as more power adapters, he said. Market commoditization “has not happened yet” with USB-C, he said. “We have still got a lot of runway for us to keep going, but ultimately, it will happen.”

Tower Semiconductor is in the “advanced stages of negotiations” with Panasonic to renew the four-year-old Tower Jazz Panasonic Semiconductor joint venture and supply agreement, which expire March 31, said Tower CEO Russell Ellwanger on a Monday earnings call. “It is obvious that the partnership will continue for multiple years with the next-stage contract extending for at least three years at production levels from Panasonic similar to the present run rate.” The Panasonic partnership “was and still is a great enabler for our technical and business development and growth,” said Ellwanger. He expects the renewed contract will include “some changes to the pricing table” because Panasonic won’t continue to cover all the fixed costs of the joint venture facilities, since Tower increasingly uses them for third-party production, he said. Tuesday, Panasonic didn’t comment.