Here’s a recap of interesting industry news from this past week, a week dominated by earnings releases.

Companies and Products

Apple reported record revenue and iPhone shipments in their December quarter, $78.4 billion and 78.29 million, respectively.

According to Strategy Analytics, Apple achieved the leading smartphone market share in Q4, which reflected the strength of iPhone 7 shipments and Samsung’s Note 7 debacle. However, Samsung retained #1 for all of 2016, at 20.8 percent of the market compared to Apple’s 14.5 percent.

Anaren released version 2.0 of their Atmosphere IoT development platform. Atmosphere generates embedded firmware and mobile application code that connects Anaren’s AIR Wi-Fi to the cloud and Bluetooth® Smart modules with mobile devices.

Cavendish Kinetics announced that 40 smartphone models use their RF MEMS antenna tuners, including Samsung's A8. Cavendish claims that MEMS technology provides better switch performance than SOI. Qorvo has invested $25 million in Cavendish.

IDT reported Q3 FY17 revenue of $176 million, which was down 4 percent from the prior quarter and down 1 percent from the prior year’s quarter. Revenue from the communications segment increased 1 percent sequentially; however, IDT estimated it will drop 12 percent in fiscal Q4, largely reflecting normal seasonality.

Following Infineon’s quarterly earnings release and during a call with the press, CEO Reinhard Ploss said the Wolfspeed acquisition is proceeding “according to plan.” He expects it to close this quarter.

To propel growth, Keysight is acquiring Ixia for $1.6 billion. Ixia provides testing, visibility and security solutions for markets complementary to Keysight’s and faster growing.

MACOM reported fiscal Q1 revenue of $151.8 million, down 0.6 percent sequentially yet 31 percent above the prior year’s quarter. The networks segment generated approximately 71 percent of the quarter’s revenue, with the A&D and multi-market segments each contributing some 14 percent.

During MACOM’s Q1 earnings call, CEO John Croteau updated analysts on the company’s GaN on Si design wins. Croteau said he is “chomping at the bit” to announce their high volume fab partner.

National Instruments released version 13 of the NI AWR Design Environment, which offers numerous enhancements to design flow management and simulation. Simulation capabilities have been expanded within the Microwave Office APLAC harmonic balance and Visual System Simulator™ (VSS) simulation engines.

NXP reported fiscal Q4 2016 earnings, noting “very strong growth” year-over-year in RF power, albeit from a deep trough in Q4 2015.

Peregrine Semiconductor announced that their latest process — UltraCMOS® 12 — is in production. It offers an RonCoff of 80 fs, 25 percent lower than the prior generation.

Qorvo reported fiscal Q3 revenue of $826 million, 33 percent greater than the prior year’s quarter. The mobile segment contributed $657 million (79 percent of total revenue), up 34 percent year-over-year; revenue from the infrastructure and defense segment was $169 million, up 29 percent year-over-year.

During Qorvo’s earnings call, James Klein, president of the infrastructure and defense business, summarized the performance and outlook for the segment.

During the same call, Eric Creviston, president of the mobile segment, described the source of continuing growth in mobile phones.

Rohde & Schwarz introduced a 6 GHz oscilloscope, which has the capability of up to 16-bit vertical resolution and 1 million waveform/second capture. The RTO2000 contains an integrated spectrum analysis and spectrogram display that enables both time and frequency domain views.

Skyworks released a front-end module for 900 MHz ISM applications. The SKY66105-11 integrates a power amplifier with +30 dBm saturated output power and a two antenna T/R switch.

Markets and Technology

5G — AT&T and Verizon acquired companies that brought 24, 28 and 39 GHz spectrum that will be used for 5G and fixed wireless access (FWA).

Broadband — AT&T is planning two field trials of Project AirGig, their patented millimeter wave over power line technology. The company said it is in “advanced discussions with power companies and others” to conduct trials by this fall in two or more locations, at least one in the U.S.

At his first meeting with FCC staff, Ajit Pai, the newly appointed chairman, told colleagues that a core FCC priority should be closing the digital divide.

Last Word President Trump continues to use Twitter as a core element of his combative communications strategy, raising interesting questions about the security of his Android phone.

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