Running discussion on SP, page-4871

While there is any doubt about the ability or timeline of WBT reram to replace a chunk of the existing flash market, investors will see an opportunity to make money by selling short. Given WBT doesn't have a customer yet, even though management thought they would have signed one by now, is fertile grounds to seed and feed doubt and fear, as a number of posters on HC continue to do.

Shorters will only disappear when they think there is no opportunity to make money selling short. The two things that will make that happen are either 1. they don't think the share price will go any lower, or 2. WBT has progressed the operations of the business to a point where it is clear they will capture a significant chunk of the existing flash markets, at which point buyers will be confident paying higher prices for the derisked and growing future revenue/earnings.

The best near term catalyst to make holders happy and shorters disappear is signing a top 10 IDM such as Intel or Samsung. While signing a tier 1 fab would be nice, it does not necessarily complete the WBT/Fab/Product triangle that Coby talks about. An IDM on the other hand controls both the Fab and the Product so signing one completes the triangle immediately.

Interestingly, Intel and Samsung's competitors AMD and Apple both have chips made by TSMC (already using reram in the iPhone). Intel and Samsung have their own fabs so to compete they need to find and implement their own reram solution because they're not going to get TSMC to make their chips!

The fact that both Intel and Samsung produce billions of chips that they could or would design WBT reram into makes the commercial opportunity for WBT significant. But more importantly, because Intel and Samsung control both the Fab and Product there is certainty about WBT revenue once their reram is designed into their products.

We all know the connections of key WBT personnel with Intel, a CEA Leti partner. Samsung has significant connections with CEA Leti too. Recent news about partnering with CEA Leti partner SOITEC, and manufacturing FD-SOI technology that CEA Leti developed and transferred to Samsung (as well as Global Foundries and ST Micro).

Until there is an agreement there remains the potential for shorters to seed and feed doubt and fear. However, looking at the broader market factors detailed above, the positioning of WBT's highly experienced team and new hires, and the consistent delivery of technology advancement, it's not a huge leap of faith to believe management can sign an agreement when they've already been working with 10 of the worlds top 15 fabs and IDM's for some time (excludes china based SMIC, HLMC and VIS, and TSMC and UMC who already have some sort of ReRam).

Fingers crossed is sooner rather than later.