Hey Folks,
I have updated the compressed list of question that
@Accumulator101 helped put together, Thanks.
@biteme I have re-introduced your original question as I thought it was more direct to the point.
@jasp@hashtagyolo@Cguv@TheTextralian@cadgee@Pepper05@Kmtw@johntie@Jockthegreat@chirofalls@patience@RTheo@numantu@1956@nissanGTR@MrPasco@Hateful8@Brabant90 sorry if I missed anyone.
Please flag If I have missed out of anything otherwise I believe we can all agree we email the below to 4DS (
[email protected])
Introduction & background
Does the Board now realise and accept that the most recent company announcement, released on 4th November, was poorly worded to say the least, was excessively negative and has resulted in a major loss of confidence in both the Board and the Company more broadly by many existing shareholders and the wider market, leading to the exit of many long-term shareholders and a resulting calamitous circa 55% fall in the share price?
Why did no-one realise this was inevitable prior to releasing the announcement as it was worded and amend it to make it less obviously damaging?
The recent loss of confidence is, in many shareholders view, a direct consequence of:
· poorly communicated strategy
· unannounced adoption of crystalline PCMO and associated risk/benefit assessment
· inconsistent and poorly worded market announcements
· “resolvable going forward with no delays to current timelines” became “expected out-of-fab date is July 2022”
· unnecessary statement: “there isno established market for Storage Class Memory”
· ongoing timeline blowouts
· commercial transaction anticipated during 2021 now appears deferred indefinitely
· directors selling shares (and no on-market purchases)
· insufficient technical information for shareholders to ascertain the possible value of the Company’s technology
· retention (ten years) last reported in 2013,endurance unknown and speed ‘near DRAM’
· cell geometry scale ill-defined
· metrics needed for SCM not stated
· undisclosed JDA with HGST
The multiple questions collated below have been sourced from many shareholders and are aimed at trying to understand how much confidence shareholders should have in the Company and its ability to sell / commercialise its technology.
Re-establishing shareholder confidence will require greater transparency going forwards, significantly improved communications and acknowledged accountability. Many shareholders believe you have a special opportunity in this AGM to demonstrate this to us in abundance by your responses to these questions.
Communications and Investor Relations
1. ASX continual disclosure requirements (3.1 to 3.1b, guidance note 8- points 4.20 to 4.22) require a listed entity to disclose information that may have a material effect on the value of its securities. Case law demonstrates that this requirement must prevail over any NDA agreements. 4DS technology performance metrics and strategic pivots should not have been withheld from the market because of NDA agreements. Can you now commit to timely announcements of any achievements, events or actions that affect the value of 4DS technology, alter the Company's research strategy, affect progress toward or achievement of milestones or change the timeline to a commercial transaction? If not, why not?
2. Unlike other ASX listed technology stocks, 4DS in recent years has not made any effort to promote the benefits of its technology through industry media. Why has 4DS adopted this approach –in contrast to earlier years - and how does this benefit shareholders?
3. Does 4DS care about their share price? Does the Board consider a higher share price to be a better platform for negotiating a commercial transaction or do they view this to be irrelevant?
Progress Towards a Commercial Transaction
4. In what ways have the results from the Second Platform Lot and Third Non-Platform Lot made 4DS commercial-ready?
5. You stated "as there is no established market for Storage Class Memory", which the market interpreted – rightly or wrongly - as indicating that there is no market for 4DS technology. What is your view on the status of the SCM market and how does this relate to 4DS and for example Intel actively commercially marketing Optane as SCM for Data Centres? Does 4DS consider 2024-2025 a realistic estimate for wider industry adoption of storage class memory?
6. At last year's AGM a Director stated that 4DS technology is already saleable and that 4DS had received considerable unsolicited interest. Do you still support this statement? If not,why not?
7. 4DS Memory could generate revenues by licensing to smaller applications - as is the approach of other emerging memory players like Weebit Nano – does the company see this as a reasonable re-calibration of business strategy whilst we wait for a Tier 1 business case for SCM that makes a 4DS acquisition attractive?
Progress Toward Technical Goals
8. What were the most significant outcomes of the Western Digital initiated meeting with 4DS in September of this year?
9. Please describe the changes and process optimisations that are required to achieve the desired technical outcomes in Platform Lot 3 and then explain why you are confident that you will achieve these outcomes?
10. Adoption of fully crystalline PCMO appears to be a major change in strategic direction, implying a shift from ReRAM towards PRAM technology. What is the business case for this change of direction and why was it not communicated to shareholders?
11. Whatis the ‘Plan B strategy’ if process optimization fails to resolve the problematic issues arising from use of the crystalline PCMO material?
12. 4DS stated that the Second Platform Lot demonstrated scalability of its memory cell to the smallest geometries on imec’s memory platform. Has 4DS achieved sub 28nm, sub 14nm or sub 10nm cell geometry? This information is critical for shareholders ability to understand the potential value of the technology being developed. If 4DS will not release this information to shareholders then please explain to us why it is not in our best interests.
13. 4DS stated that it has boosted read speed by one order of magnitude.Please describe how this relates to specifications needed to meet SCM requirements and explain how this improvement affects the value of 4DS technology.
14. In a 2013 presentation 4DS stated that its memory device had achieved retention of 10 years at 85 degrees C. More recently various ASX announcements stated "best retention ever recorded by the company". Does "best retention ever recorded" mean better retention than reported in 2013?
15. Does the company view the Yield being achieved in recent iterations as sufficient to enable commercialisation or does this still need to improve further?
Relationship with Western Digital
16. Has Western Digital defined a conditional set of technical parameters to 4DS which, if met, would potentially encourage it to pursue a commercial transaction with us?
17.4DS stated that it continues to improve its test capability. Please explain why this is the case and why we are not instead leveraging Western Digital or imec's test capabilities to extract additional endurance information from the Third Non-Platform Lot.
Technical Parameters for Commercialisation
18. 4DS in its most recent announcement stated that it identified a potential modest degradation of endurance with the one order of magnitude boost in read speed. Company testing has shown that endurance of these improved cells was several orders of magnitude better than NAND. However,the announcement implied that this is not good enough.
Please explain why the degraded endurance is not good enough and tell us how much better than NAND our memory endurance must be to be acceptable for the nascent SCM market?
19. Development of technology can continue forever but shareholders would like a clearer time frame as to when 4DS expect to achieve asatisfactorily working Mb chip. Now that the timeline has, yet again, been pushed out, on this occasion by minimum 9 to 12 months, what assurances can 4DS give shareholders that we are actually ticking the boxes that will lead to a commercially viable Mb chip? When do 4DS believethey will be able to wrap this up?
Financial
20. Assessment of our cash balance suggests that we are in for another Capital Raise. If this is the case, will 4DS be seeking a premium value or a value that reflects the sales pool bonus? If not, how do you convince shareholders to see value after the recent major drop in share price all the while both current and former executives are seen to be reducing their portfolio coupled with the absence of any on-market purchases?
