The above schematic illustrates the "Announcement Problem" with BrainChip.In WEBSITE 2 we see a recent media release where Prophesee publicly announces the development of a photographic processing module that uses neuromorphic AI to de-blur images (sharpen them), still photos or video, in real-time. An incredible feat.
"The neuromorphic event-driven sensor, which is co-developed with Sony, is being used alongside a traditional camera to provide more data about the image. This can be used to deblur a picture or video, and improve the image quality, particularly in low light with longer exposure times.
"The Metavision Image Deblur Solution for Smartphones is now a
production-ready module that is optimized for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform used by
high end smartphone makers."
Prophesee have not named the source of the neuromorphic AI processing technology. No credit given.
However, we do know from Prohesee's own website that they have partnered with Brainchip - so likely it is Akida IP they are using. But, we don't know for sure, and even though this is a
huge commercial achievement - BRN likely can't say.
We will have to get used to this because any customer of BRN that similarly develops their own products that incorporate BRN IP will behave the same.
We will have to wait for the license fees to start showing-up in BRN's quarterly 4C statements.
But here is the second problem.
The flow diagram at the bottom of the schematic shows how long winded the sales cycle is
First, BRN has to partner with Prophesee, who then begin their own in-house R&D to develop their de-blurring tech. Several years.
Prophesee then partner with a smartphone manufacturer who then start their own R&D to use the de-blur module in their phone. Another couple of years.
Finally the Smartphone goes into manufacture and gets released to the market.
Not until the Smartphones are purchased by retail distributors and taken into stock will a revenue event occur. That money can then flow back down the chain to pay BRN a license fee per smartphone sold.
It's a long chain of development that can take years (about 5) to generate license fees. That's the bad news.
The good news is, when all of these commercial agreements finally start earning license fees the cash flow will keep coming and from multiple deals (between 10 to 100) that the Brainchip sales team have been working on over the last few years.
When it starts happening the revenue will start growing exponentially.
That's the IP licensing model that Brainchip decided to pursue several years ago.
REMEMBER: We don't know if Prophesee is using AKIDA.
(20min delay)