Gosh, what bad luck! And what terrible timing, just as we are all waiting for results of the testing to be announced at the AGM - the tester ate all of our homework! And we will not be able to do more testing until after the AGM is been and gone. Forgive any element of cynicism in my commentary following @epiphyte's astute observation.
Seriously, this is difficult stuff to swallow. I would be a bit more critical of such an announcement at such a time if similar things had not happened to me back when I was selling high-tech analytical instrumentation. Sh!t like this does happen. Anyone who has had to go do an important Powerpoint presentation will have similar stories I'm sure. The likelihood of failure seems to be directly correlated with the importance of the presentation. If it's going tor fail it will not be in the rehearsal, it will be on the day that counts. So I am not too cynical to not sympathise.
So let's look at what we have just been told. Firstly: Underlining and emphasis mine.
"... Audio Pixels is pleased to update its shareholders that the recent adjustments made to the MEMS fabrication process, yielded wafers of sufficient quality as to allow the acoustic characterisation phase to begin. ... Initial measurements confirmed that past issues pertaining to stiction and shorts appear to be resolved. ..."
Reading this on the back of earlier announcements makes this now the third time AP has confirmed that all earlier problems (following the appearance of "voltage" issues back in 11/16 have now been resolved.
From Announcement of 21/12/18. Underlining and emphasis mine.
"... The first major breakthrough concerns resolving the stiction and charge trapping issues we had using unique and robust charge dissipation mechanism. As has been noted in previous announcements, proper digital sound reconstruction demands that our elements (pixels) begin and complete their motion within a few millionths of a second. In order to achieve such operational accuracy, the devices must be able to repeatedly respond to electrical commands with sub-microsecond precision. Certain adverse effects inherent to electrostatically actuated MEMS devices disrupt such precision. Of particular concern in our devices is a phenomenon known as “stiction”, which occurs naturally during normal operation. Electrical charges accumulate or penetrate the surface thereby altering the attraction forces which in turn slows down or even prevents the release of the moving element. ...
... The company re-assessed the issue and devised 3 unique approaches to supress the specific adverse effects intrinsic in our device. All 3 approaches were fabricated, vigorously tested and proven to work. One specific approach was selected not only because it proved to be the exceptionally robust and effective, but also because of the minimal disruption and low cost involved in implementing this approach into existing structure designs and fabrication methods. This solution has (so far) achieved nearly 100,000,000,000 repeatable cycles without failure. Patents have been authored (1) as this unique approach is potentially applicable across a wide variety of applications throughout the MEMS industry. ...
... The third major breakthrough pertains to the advancement in reproducing sound. Resolving operational stability of the devices (2) enabled the company to take detailed acoustic measurements and make great strides furthering the playing capabilities of our devices.
(1) The patent documents referred to probably include those shown in the patent application recently listed on this site between 26/1/17 and 21/5/19. This outlines the basic design of the MEMS with progressive modifications culminating in the (presumably) current design being allowed by the USPTO.
(2) Reproducing sound - this appears to be being said of the partial structure, not the standard MEMS. It is accepted and assumed however that the standard device can play sound as previously reported. See below.
From the recent Annual Report: Underlining and emphasis mine.
"... As has been previously reported, this was a period of consequential achievements. Paramount among these achievements has been the introduction and validation of our newly developed charging or charge trapping suppression mechanism. This patent‐pending innovation appears to have finally resolved what was considered to be the key technological obstacle hindering our path to product commercialization. ...
... Perhaps the most noteworthy achievements of this period are associated with acoustic development and testing using wafers that incorporate the newly designed charge suppression mechanism. While the fabricator is in the latter stages of refining the fabrication processes, nonetheless early wafers delivered exhibited performance and reliability that are incomparably superior to anything the Company has received in the past. These early deliveries have enabled the Company to make tremendous strides measuring and refining the drive electronics and acoustic output of the devices. The devices have already been proven to play music! (3) In fact, early results are unprecedented with devices reproducing frequencies below 100Hz (by comparison the very best similar sized analog speakers have a lower limit of roughly 800Hz or 3 octaves above ours). ...
... These achievements (and more) attained during this reporting period contribute to a very positive outlook that the company is rapidly approaching the latter stages of realizing its vision. Specifically, the invention and implementation of an effective and reliable charging suppression mechanism has removed what was previously considered to be ‘the’ last technical hurdle in the way of production of working full structure devices. ..."
(3) The devices playing music here are presumably the regular devices, not the partial structure ones, although as both use the same basic MEMS structures this ability is presumably common to both structures. The description is not entirely clear. Todays announcement presumably clarifies this. The company has said it is focussing primarily on the standard structures and device with a view to rapid commercialisation.
Then we hear the bad news:
"... Unfortunately, we have had to temporarily suspend the next steps of acoustic testing when a rare system glitch in the prober resulted in the destruction of the wafer. We expect to continue the acoustic characterisationimmediately upon receipt of replacement wafers from our vendor in early June, as they hold, by design many dozens of wafers in the pipeline in various stages of fabrication. ..."
Dang! They broke the whole wafer!? Presumably the tester has to use a whole wafer rather than pieces, even if the pieces contain functional devices. Nothing else to test then? Nothing can be done now except wait? How inconvenient considering how close we are to an AGM where eager holders were just dying to hear a positive announcement. How very inconvenient !!!
Early June is before mid June. Early June is therefore before 15/6. So we can expect them to roar back into testing on or before that date. My bet is that they will not let us know when they do get the wafer. Even a simple little confirmatory note would be nice.
Unfortunately I am not able to attend the AGM. Coming over from NZ is also damned expensive - especially if there is essentially no news. And I was so looking forward to hearing Johnny Cash again!
AP has repeatedly said their announcements are factually correct. But they are not very good at keeping the owners (us) informed about the context and overview of the business as a whole. So, if I were to attend I would be asking some very pointed questions:
> Will they please let us know when they receive the wafers and are ready to restart so we know that there are no additional glitches, e.g. in fixing the prober.
> How long will it take to test the wafers and update shareholders on the progress?
> Can all of the tests they need to do to qualify the build quality be done on the wafer they expect to receive?
> Will they announce results of the first wafers that are tested? Good and/or bad.
> Based on the positive announcements to date, and assuming that there will be a series of wafers marking incremental adjustments after feedback, how long should we expect to wait before the final validated signed off version is approved. Weeks? Months? Another year?
> What is the timeframe from obtaining a signed off device and then a finished chip ready to do demonstrations?
> What steps have to be taken to set up promotional demos?
> What steps have to be set up to build a marketing and sales organisation to take the product to market?
> What steps have already been taken along that path?
> Where have the new engineering staff been located?
> Why is Yuval Cohen now resident in Sydney?
> What is the purpose of AudioPixels Technologies Ltd?
> How long can we expect to wait before the company is ready to take orders for a commercial product?
> etc, etc.
You all get the picture I’m sure. Anybody who plans to go I invite you to not only ask probing questions like these, but to press the board and management to provide answers and to spell out what moves they have put in motion but that they have not yet seen fit to make known to us as co-owners of the company.
And then please come back and put your findings up here for all to hear.
(20min delay)