I have become increasingly concerned that I have fallen in love with this stock. I decided to go back and review announcements as a reality check to my core belief that we have an outstanding board that knows how to meet deadlines.
12 December 2019 : Weebit moving towards commercialisation ahead of schedule, with external technology verification by XTX
"The Company remains on track to transfer its technology to a production fab by December 2020.""Development of a memory module for a potential South Korean customer – this is on track for delivery by mid-2020. The memory module work is a critical input for the production process, and the work being done for the South Korean partner will largely be applicable for any further customer developments."
29 January, 2020 : Q2 FY20 Activities Update
"Discussions with several potential semiconductor customers, technical partners and production facilities continue, and we are working to obtain first orders in 2020."
10 February 2020 : Weebit Nano launches program to address the discrete memory market
'' the Company is now able to accelerate its entry into the discrete, stand-alone, memory chip market. This broadens the work program for Weebit beyond just the “embedded” non-volatile memory (NVM) market, which includes applications such as AI, IoT and Analog, for which Weebit Nano is on track for first orders in late 2020."
"The program consists of three stages: Stage 1, 3-months long, will be used to define the specific details of the selector and based on that the commercial details. Once these details are defined, the other two stages, totaling another 12 months, will lead to a demonstration of Weebit’s ReRAM cell working with the selector."
"Our goal is to demonstrate the ReRAM cell intended for the discrete memory market by mid-2021."
I note that is the last round of interviews Coby mention that Weebit now have two selectors under development. Does this indicate that the first selector is not working at scale and the initial (and revised) plans to enter the discrete market are now way behind schedule.
7 October 2020 : Weebit Nano successfully completes stabilisation
"Weebit Nano ... has successfully completed its technology stabilisation process and is now ready to transfer its technology to a production fab."
"Further development work integrating Leti’s proprietary selector with Weebit Nano’s ReRAM for the discrete memory market. Expecting to meet the goal of demonstrating it by September 2021."
9 September 2021 : Weebit signs first commercial deal to take its ReRAM technology to volume production with US-based SkyWater
"Under the technology transfer and qualification agreement, Weebit and SkyWater will immediately cooperate in transferring Weebit’s embedded ReRAM technology to SkyWater’s production fab and then continue to qualify it, aiming for volume production by the end of 2022."
Of course we had COVID, but also assurances that COVID did not cause delays - there were other reasons. But delays, significant delays there have been.
Recent presentations (say last 12 months) have emphasized how slow the whole process to commercialization in the semiconductor industry is. Why were we not warned of this 4 years ago when immanent entry to the discrete market (the largest $ segment) was being forecast.
And now discrete (even without selector) is disappearing over the horizon, and the selector seems to be searching for alternative implementations.
The recently announced largest ever production array of 1MB is too small to compete in the stand alone discrete market, and way too small to handle any edge AI inferencing models, let alone training on a server.
And still I look for a reason to believe.
90% of my holdings are WBT. Am I in love, do I suffer from FOMO? Is it time to diversify while I am still way in front? These and other questions plague me.
I am an investor, not a trader, so I have patience, I'm just not sure how much more.
Please feel free to criticize, and help me keep the faith.
WBT Price at posting:
$3.35 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)