Good find - and good to see that 4ds getting mentioned, and...

Good find - and good to see that 4ds getting mentioned, and recognised as being interface switching rather than filamentary.

Re the development stage, I think the fact that 4ds has been adamant about demonstrating that its 1mb chip has been produced on industry standard production equipment (with independent validation of imec) de-risks it from the viewpoint of a potential acquirer;

Many of the risks in stages 6 to 10 already addressed in some form by having a partner eg Stage 8 “customers- do they want it?” 6 years of joint development agreement with WD suggests they do. Stage 9 - will have good sense of yields because made on 300mm wafers/industry production equipment - and not in a lab.

Expect 4ds will be sold during Stage 5. Don’t believe 4ds has any intention of becoming a chip supplier.

The risk referred to of ramping up product sales will thus be borne by the acquirer (which for reasons above for 4ds would be significantly less than 90%). Dearth of other candidates (non-filamentary for SCM) also bodes well for 4ds