All good comments Brick, RVR, and others. From Danny's comments...

All good comments Brick, RVR, and others.

From Danny's comments some time back I think that EM were a new player to their considerations, and yes, they were probably only considered after all the other 'friendly' FABs were unable to give them rapid response time and priority to produce further prototypes. But EM were different it seems. EM were essentially on the same page in seeing the potential of AP in the same field they themselves were working - audio and video. I am picking that they expressed an enthusiasm that put legs under the development in terms of FAB time. That is the clear impression I glean from all of the comments on EM from AP.

I also get the impression that EM had significant familiarity with MEMS development, and I think we are seeing this with the patents of 'other' audio MEMS chips coming out from EM. A lot of the breakthroughs have been made from the point that EM got involved, especially when you read between the handful of comments from AP that EM got involved a lot earlier than the announcements actually describe. They seem to have been very catalytic in getting us to this point.

With that as a basis I consider that EM are now a vital part of the team that will get us there. The other 2 FABs that do 8" wafers seem likely to be 'affiliated' with EM through their 'cooperative venture'. Bringing additional FABs onboard could easily bring some of its own problems. I expect that this is what we are seeing as the results.

Doing all this while COVID immobilised that entire industry as well as the FABs themselves would not have helped production quality or availability of machines in a hurry.

But that does not mean that any of these problems are insuperable. It just means they were not signalled ahead of time, which is probably more to do with AP's apparent reticence to be seen to not be having difficulties: "everything is going according to our plan - just trust us!".

I suspect this goes back to the original 4 Phase Plan to go from concept to prototype to pre-production product to commercial product in a single smooth high speed program. Easy! What could go wrong? This has been beneficial on the whole, but not when it has not gone according to that plan. When there have been setbacks through unanticipated, unexpected, and unknown-unknown functional problems, these have not been acknowledged as possibly being primarily shortcomings of the Plan. The plan was a good idea, inasmuch as it promised a rapid shift from concept to product in the shortest possible time, but in practice the very speed of that development plan has been part of the problem. In doing everything on the cheap they have also done things brilliantly. Do this in academia and we would not be even half way to this point. Do it in a major enterprise and it would have cost zillions more and still possibly not been as quick. But while there would have been obstacles and dead ends and retracements these would have been well expected and budgeted for. Relatively speaking AP seems to have been more or less 'done in a garage' with help from collegial mates in the industry at 'mates rates' as 'outsider jobs'. This all stands to affirm the brilliance and ingenuity of the originators of the ideas. Were there setbacks and delays. Of course. How could there not have been? But bring in EM at the point they did, bring in multi physics software when they did, and things are very close to bringing a remarkable, groundbreaking, revolutionary product to market in record time and at record low cost.

But when you only focus on what has not been done on schedule one could be tempted to hiss and spit and attribute this as either coming from technical incompetence, or from the indifference that comes from a narrow top 20 holders who see the company as being their personal company with a noisy fringe of passengers, not to mention any of the more outlandish conspiratorial paranoias that have been promoted on HC.

Those inside the company structure have had far better insight into the development realities. That is just simply true. They do not have to depend on cryptic announcements to reassure them that there will actually be a finish date and a successful product at its end. They have far more basis for confidence than we mere retail holders do. But unfair as that is, it should still be seen as a good thing, a very good thing. And especially so when they display that confidence in tangible terms at recent cash raisings to sophisticated investors.

There I also point to the fact that part of that raising was the private, even secretive, revelation of the (GEN-I) chip playing music to those willing to buy in. That was I believe highly disrespectful to existing holders who were not given the same information. How many of them gave up at that point and sold out their AKP shares because there was nothing to reassure them that there was a real product? Causes and consequences are linked.

But despite the design failures and the delays in scheduling, all of which could and should have been expected, this is still, at this point in time, more likely than not to be only a few weeks away from revealing a product that changes audio forever. And when it does, it will help fill up patient investors's coffers with well deserved profits. I can't wait!

Well, I can. But I just wish I didn't have to wait without knowing!

GLTAH.