@flight11
No. I think what has been said in the announcement does not really make sense if it is read at face value given everything else we have been told. I consider it to be quite ambiguous. AKP seems to write statements that are not 100% clear and/or 100% comprehensive. I have laid out the reasons I think that. But as I do not KNOW the story behind this statement I cannot judge the dot-for-dot truth of each point addressed. I.e. I am simply inferring (guessing) in an educated manner.
As I understand it the demo units would have been designed to play chips outside of cleanrooms. To be driving naked dies in a cleanroom would probably not be what they would have been designed to do. So the key question is whether the demo unit can drive chips and dies directly or not. If it cannot drive dies directly that does not mean it will not be able to drive chips. If they have chips then it can drive them, but it would then not need to be in the cleanroom to do so, but of course it could be done there also.
The company does not have finished chips as far as we know - or rather, they do not have packaged chips from the latest process that work correctly. But that does not mean they don't have older chips that could be driven, even if the sound from them is fuzzy. These could of course be operated in the cleanroom. I have held such chips in my own hand, so I do know that such things do exist!
One can write and read a statement that fits more than one particular meaning as written, and that statement can then be interpreted in ways that are not entirely justified - or meant - but they are open to that interpretation, and we are tempted to jump to that conclusion, because that's what we are hoping to hear, in this case, what we want to hear is this:
"We have played music from MEMS of the latest iteration of the manufacturing process before they have been converted into finished chips, and these are currently being driven by one of two demo units in a cleanroom, and when there are finished chips they can be played outside the cleanroom too."
But I do not believe that is what has actually been said, or meant. And in fact I do not think that is feasible or likely.
I suspect that what they are really saying in the statement is better read as meaning this:
"We have made chip demonstrators that will play finished chips singly or as arrays outside the cleanroom. These were designed long before COVID to play chips to prospective customers, but not naked dies. We can make single naked dies from the latest iteration play music though the prober. These include half structure MEMS, which are not as good as the full structure MEMS, which we can also play, but we cannot play either of them as arrays as these require multiple ASICs to control them, and the prober does not have this capability. We did not envisage needing to play naked dies. (Yes it is possible that they have been able to rig up some connections to make them work but this is not optimal and it can only be operated in a cleanroom. But that has not been said, so it is thus a complete assumption on the readers behalf to fill in the un-said gap.) We can play older packaged chips in the demo units but they do not sound very good, and that is why we have not presented comparative info or sound files from them playing. But, rest assured, very soon we will have finished packaged chips from the latest manufacturing iteration and then we will be able to play both types of MEMS as finished chips. These do not need to be in a cleanroom."
This fits the statement also. Which is correct? I do not know. So I have to judge the probability of each dot of meaning independently. That is what I come up with. Take it or leave it as you wish. You do your own research and you make your own interpretation of it. That is simply my take. Only further revelations will clarify the situation.
(20min delay)