There is no question that AP is close to having demonstrable chips IMO. The report you quote indicates how much progress had been made by that point in 2019. Later reports show both further problems but further progress to solve those problems. I recommend all holders take a close re-look at the progress delineated by the company over this period as it is quite pertinent to understanding where progress stands. Indeed understanding it is crucial to understanding where we are actually at currently as indicated and acknowledged by the company itself. This is especially true of the final report which is the last announcement we were provided with.
We are undeniably closer now than at any time in the company's history.
As I understand it (based on what has been disclosed by the company to date), and presuming all is going well with the packaging process that has been indicated is currently underway, I would expect that the next released announcement will confirm that finished chips have been received by the company's lab in Israel and are in testing or have completed testing. Hopefully the latter, because I am guessing that they will want to issue something reasonably definitive and positive after such a long period with no news at all. We have been told that they have autonomous demo devices available that allow the chips to be mounted and demonstrated outside of a clean room facility - in other words this will be a mock-up iPod like device like the one shown in images previously, that would allow a digital signal to be input to the autonomous device and sound would come out of it directly. (I don't think the image below is the chip playing module. This one shows unpackaged chips by the look of it)
This should allow the company to test the finished batch of dies as finished packaged products and to produce product performance specs that can be publicly disclosed.
"... As described in prior reports and updates, our devices consistently play music, although not quite yet at performance levels that meet our aspirations. A critical task to achieving and demonstrating our performance objectives requires our bridging the gap between the perfect world of computer design and simulation and the imperfect world of fabrication. This task (colour coded in light green) necessitates measuring and modelling the finite details of the actual acoustic impulse response in order to amend and fine-tune our algorithms to harmonize with the actual functional and acoustic output capabilities of the current MEMS transducer. As mentioned above this task will commence within the coming days when the recently received full structured wafers complete its “burn-in” process.
An additional noteworthy accomplishment of the period has been the bringing of a second packaging vendor online. The vendor which is locally located in Israel has already delivered assembled and packaged chips in record time. While the chips the vendor packaged were produced prior to the design and process changes, nonetheless they not only perform as expected, they enabled us to test and perfect our development and demonstration environment outside of the cleanroom. ..."
The ongoing problems and delays would therefore presumably have been a result of the ongoing COVID-19 lockdowns in Israel and/or Germany.
It is in this light that my earlier posting in response to an indication that packaging had been completed in Germany should be read.
(20min delay)