My impression from announcements was that the platform lot development and fabrication work was happening in parallel with the recently finished wafer lot, with the wafer lot coming on the heels of the platform lot. That's clearly changed.
I think it's important to remember that the bulk of the work in these iterations occurs as a design exercise (development work) - each process step has to be mapped out, the process conditions and settings on the equipment etc. "Pressing play" and watching the wafers bake is the final bit and from a quick Google search takes 10 to 30 days.
My interpretation is that they made such a good discovery in the current wafer lot, (relating to risk in process - perhaps something that improves yield?) that leaving it out of the platform lot would have been an error of judgement. Putting it into the coming platform lot seems like a real value adder - it wouldn't surprise me if additional patent(s) come out of it.
The team took the discovery over to the platform lot design team and said "incorporate this into the platform lot." That required time the team didn't have - It pushed out the fabrication/process design completion timeline beyond the booked fabrication slot and as such we had to take the next available slot (mid Q1 next year).
I feel like the announcement could have explained this a lot better to avoid all this speculation and uncertainty. If my assessment is what 4DS is dealing with, no reasonable person would begrudge them this change to plan.
4DS Price at posting:
12.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
