I have been thinking about everyone's interpretations of the company's announcements, including timelines and specifically around their 1st February announcement, taking into consideration where we are today.
10th Aug 20 - Announcement
"Significantly, the outcome of development discussions is that the Second Platform Lot will be fabricated tocontain dense memory arrays with transistors that are able to select memory cells.This is a major strategic decision to better ensure success in 2021 when, based on the results of this SecondPlatform Lot, 4DS and its partners will potentially progress to fabricate wafers with all the control logic necessaryto read and write selected bits and bytes, and therefore be able to operate as a fully functional megabit memory.
Pretty straightforward announcement above...
1st Feb 21 - Announcement
"The learnings from the Second Non-Platform Lot have been incorporated into the process split conditions for theSecond Platform Lot of 300mm wafers. The Second Platform Lot is using imec’s memory platform, and containsdense memory arrays with the control logic necessary to read and write selected bits and bytes. The production of the Second Platform Lot commenced at imec in Belgium on 27 January 2021, and the Companyexpects to analyse these wafers in Q2 of 2021.
The results from the analysis of the Second Platform Lot are expected to pave the way for 4DS and its partnersto pursue their strategic objective of fabricating wafers with chips that operate as fully functional megabitmemories, and which have been produced using state of the art industry fab equipment. If successful, this maybring 4DS closer to its 2021 objective to achieve a potential corporate transaction."
The change here is that the 2nd platform lot has all control logic, easy to understand and a significant development made in the 6+ months between announcements. However, the 2nd platform lot being expected to pave the way to fabricating chips that operate as fully functional MB memories seems somewhat contradictory and possibly a fall back option should they want/need to proceed with a 3rd platform lot.
So, given the production of the 2nd platform lot commenced on 27th January '21 and was received in Fremont on the 20th June '21, if they are to proceed with a 3rd platform lot, it's only reasonable to expect it will take another 5 months.
With regards to their 'extensive testing', I expect it to take at least 4 - 6 weeks to be completed, especially if they are testing fully functional MB memories. All development work with IMEC is focused on collating a data set in order to prove the production process and commercial viability of 4DS ReRam and to extract maximum shareholder value from its sale/acquisition. So, I don't really expect another update until August.
Should they then proceed to do another platform lot (very likely imo) that will take us through to the end of the year, add on testing and we are minimum in February 2022 before they have reached their strategic objective. A corporate transaction will take even more time after this.
Now, my opinion of the board, company and their announcements is that they are pretty rock solid, they try and manage expectations as honestly as possible and they always provide the market updates when they indicate they will (next). Only those who do not understand the sheer complexity of what they are undertaking, expect them to manage timelines like a chippy giving a quote to build a shed out the back.
If things go well, we will get a corporate transaction at the end of this year, if they do proceed with a 3rd platform lot, expect a transaction to occur mid 2022.
