There is a difference between designing a MEMS device that is designed to perform certain innovative functions in a defined way, and transforming that concept and design into a real working device that does every part of its intended function in every intended way.
In earlier times product designers had to work to create drawings of ideas in their heads that they imagined would move in certain ways. Send the drawings off to the worksop and get a product cut and sanded to shape. If you could make it it would simply work as envisaged. But when these were fabricated from clouds of metal gas deposited onto a metal or ceramic surface, then etched off again with acids to leave not simply flat layers, but physical 3 dimensional struts and plates, their expectations often had to be adjusted. Some structures could not be made in the ways they envisaged. It was a case of back to the drawing board, multiple time, but with a whole new set of limitations and expectations each time.
It seems that AKP has been through all of the phases of this, including using multi-physics software that provides far more realistic parameters that reflect the ways things actually happen on those tiny scales. Looking back it is clear they did not know what they did not - and could not - know. Looking at the learning process they have been through and how they have adapted their approach it is to their credit that they have gotten this far. But in my view (and it is a viewpoint not evidence I am party to) I am persuaded that they have learned how to do what they hoped to do. All in all this has not proved easy or straightforwards. But even the early prototypes are staggeringly amazing in what they achieved - a fact that should not be overlooked. The goal is real!
On the other hand it is clearly just so easy to sit back anonymously at your keyboard, full of your own importance, and scoff at others efforts, and pretend that you know that they are charlatans and frauds, basing that solely on promises that did not quite come off as their makers had hoped. 'Surely', they say with baseless confidence, 'these guys are incompetent, worse, they are simply trying to rip us all off'. To even consider such conclusions I would like to see a lot more actual evidence for such accusatory claims.
One can be too suspicious, sometimes fatally so. (This is from The Princess Bride. Those that remember it will see my point.)
Certainly confidence is not helped by the scoffing criticism from sideline drongos who attempt nothing and make nothing themselves, but are quick to criticise those who do. Hot Copper seems to be a magnet for such armchair exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger syndrome. (look it up)
What I see instead is a company that is doing everything in its power to get to the finish line with a product that does what they initially envisaged. Moreover, I see people who believe that their visionary product is not only producible, but really will be groundbreaking when it finally arrives. It may have proved to be more difficult to produce than they thought, but they have just kept on adjusting techniques and working on the difficulties. And its leaders are prepared to invest their own money to get it to the line. I like that. And I am prepared to accept that such attitudes are rewarded with success more often than not.
Hence I am happy to wait patiently and optimistically to see how this plays out. I have a proportionately large investment here, so it matters to me a lot. But my optimism is not just based on wishful thinking, even though there is plenty of wishful thinking going on. Everything that has been announced to date supports such a view. What I see is real life playing out. 3 steps forwards and 2 steps back. Rinse and repeat. Lots of frustration, especially to under-informed onlookers from outside the boardroom and the labs and FABs, who just have to play 'what if?' games as they try to guess what will happen and when. But it has all the right ingredients for me to conclude that success is not just possible but achievable. Hope and reason are both needed as the basis for taking a risk. There are no sure bets in life. GLTAH.
AKP Price at posting:
$6.20 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
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