Great work RTheo, very well done.
I gave Q24 a crack.
Please send through your Questions if anyone else has something to add.
Attention : Drs. Wilbert van den Hoek / Dr Guido Arnout
Progress Towards a Commercial Transaction1. You reported that "4DS Memory had made significant and industry recognisable progress". The recent share price action suggests the opposite. What is the evidence you rely on to justify the assertion that “significant and industry recognisable progress" has in fact been made?
2. In what ways have the results from the Second Platform Lot and Third Non-Platform made 4DS commercial ready?
3. You stated "As there is no established market for Storage Class Memory" which the market interpreted as indicating that there is no market for 4DS technology. What is the status of the SCM market and how does this relate to 4DS technology and Intel actively commercially marketing Intel Optane Memory as Storage Class Memory for Data Center Storage?
4. At last year's AGM a director stated that 4DS technology is already saleable and that 4DS had received much unsolicited interest. Do you support this statement? If not, why not, and what will you do to address this commentary.
Progress Toward Technical Goals5. What were the three most significant outcomes of the Western Digital initiated meeting with 4DS?
6. Please describe the changes and process optimisations are required to achieve the technical outcomes in platform lot 3 and then provide evidence for your confidence that you will achieve these outcomes?
7. What is the ‘Plan B strategy’ if process optimization fails to resolve the problematic issues arising from use of the crystalline PCMO material?
8. Can 4DS confirm that the Third Non-Platform Lot wafers to be the last of the non-platform wafers?
Significance of company personnel changes
9. Who is currently fulfilling the role of the former CTO and why is Sheshubabu Desu leaving 4DS Memory after 9 years of service?
Communications and Investor Relations
10. Unlike other technology ASX listed stocks 4DS has not promoted the benefits of its technology through industry media outlets. Why has 4DS adopted this approach and how does this benefit shareholders?
11. Given that the NDA with imec precludes provision of timely, quantitative and contextualized performance reporting, please explain: how the NDA benefits shareholders?
12. From a shareholder’s perspective, 4DS continually habitually presents announcements on the ASX with little to no quantitative or contextual information. This makes it impossible to determine what actual progress is being made. The qualitative and frustratingly vague Technical Announcements confuse shareholders because contextually cannot be assessed. Will 4DS commit to ensuring that all future announcements include contextualized metrics and measurable performance milestones to ensure that both market and shareholders are accurately informed? If not, why not?
13. 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 to understand the value of the technology developed.
14. 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.
15. Does 4DS care about the share price? If not, why not? If yes what actions will you take to restore market and shareholder confidence lost by total breach of the 2021 commitment to deliver a commercial transaction and/or megabit chip?
Relationship with Western Digital
16. What is the scope of Western Digital’s role in the Joint Development Agreement and what material benefits does this role provide 4DS and its shareholders?
17. Has Western Digital defined a conditional set of parameters which, if met, would to allow it to pursue a commercial transaction with 4DS? If not, what is stopping Western Digital from making a commercial transaction with 4DS?
18. 4DS stated that it continues to improve its test capability. Please explain why this is the case and why we are not leveraging Western Digital test capabilities to extract additional endurance information from the Third Non Platform Lot.
Relationship with imec
19. Can you please confirm that during the period of the suspension, imec wanted to discontinue the collaboration agreement and 4DS had to give them increased fees and a royalty in order to win imec’s further support?
20. Under what circumstances do you see the royalty claim being initiated with imec, given the development steps and agreement timeline with imec?
Technical Parameters for Commercialisation
21. 4DS 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 while 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 incipient SCM market?
22. Can 4DS today challenge Intel Optane Technology and commercially market its technology with current metrics?
23. Development can continue forever but shareholders want a clear time frame as to when 4DS expect to wrap this up. Now that the timeline has yet again been pushed out, on this occasion by 9 to 12 months, what assurances can 4DS give shareholders that we are actually ticking the boxes that lead to a commercially viable megabit chip? When will 4DS wrap this up?
24. Assessment of our cash balance indicates that we are in for another Capital Raise. 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 major drop in share price all the while current and former executives are seen reducing their portfolio coupled with the absence of on market purchases.
(20min delay)