Meeting notes.
The meeting was an hour and a half and was dominated by Yuval and Danny's presentation, and they also answered most of the questions.It was very detailed and often technical. And when people asked questions, there was often a hidden layer of complexity revealed by Yuval required to answer the questions correctly. These chips are very complicated and what they are doing is difficult.
A significant amount of time at the beginning of the meeting explained the delays with packaging - it's a big problem.
They believe that they will be in commercial production before the end of the year and have reserved capacity at a fab to achieve this goal. Danny made it sound like it was fait accompli (
@caredes can you get a quote from your recording?). He wouldn't say how many chips precisely, but he did say it was in the millions.
The distraction of COVID has allowed them to improve specific technical capabilities of the company. Although you wouldn't say COVID had been beneficial - they seem to have been using the time constructively.
Multiphysics (yes,
@mbot Comsol) has allowed them to iterate over improvements rapidly compared to years past. The example Yuval used was when they manufactured 600 wafers with various specifications - the initial step in that process is now done via the multiphysics models. Changes to materials, shapes, glues almost anything etc can be modelled and they can rule out the dead ends and get wafers designed and delivered way quicker.
The reduction in wafer fabric cycle time to 6 weeks has come with some caveats; although it's faster and cheaper, they lost 15db or so (65 to 50). But they've made up some of that loudness with the multiphysics and have improved sound quality also - they are constantly making improvements to the pixel designs and MEMS chips.
Yuval did a demonstration of the customer interface web app. He typed in the number of chips and what kind of configuration (placement) to replicate. He used the user interface to model the sound waves in the room. It did look like it worked well. There is a trade-off between bass response and directionality - the more bass generated, the harder it is to point the sound in specific directions, especially with smaller numbers of chips.
They are still on target to get the 80 chip board ready for the end of June - they've already built one board as pictured in preso, and version 2 of the 80 chips board will be ready soon. The board allows them to test various configs - you can have all 80 chips, or you can have a chip in each corner or a row of 10 chips or two rows of 10 chips.
There were some questions on when are they going to stop tinkering and get on with it. They said they are happy with the audio quality; they need to get the packaging stuff sorted. But they also said they would keep making improvements - and in fact, Yuval looked a little upset for a second at the thought of not being able to tinker with his pixels.
There was a question - if the chips are getting better all the time, why not wait a few years until they are even better sounding and cheaper? They said they were happy to release the chip at the end of the year, and there were advantages to having a constantly improving product.
There was a question on a marketing ramp up? Fred said there was no need, and he gave the impression that there will be plenty of interest when the chips are ready. Danny said they would hire people as needed - just as they've done with the current engineering team.
Fred gave a very similar answer to a question on finance - he said they could need anywhere from 20 to 80 million depending on what they decide to do manufacturing wise (beyond the reserved capacity). But no decision would be made until after the demo - which makes sense in a cart before the horse kind of way. But he said raising funds shouldn't be a problem (not many problems in Fredland today).
Someone asked a question about licensing - they aren't interested - they have looked at that before, and it didn't work for them. Danny and Fred were pretty gun-ho on let's make these things.
That's all I can remember for now - there was a lot to take in. My overall impression was that they are getting on with things - Yuval and Danny were able to answer all questions expertly and succinctly.
Good luck all.
(20min delay)