MEMS the word in the spec tech rush

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...49269065?nk=f6f4d032816a40d3923869d95533f50f#.

No mention of Bluechiip (ASX: BCT) but there's movement in the MEMS space....its on the radar.

MEMS the word in the spec tech rush
by: Richard Hemming
From: The Australian
September 06, 2014 12:00AM

SPECULATIVE stocks are back in fashion. Not so much on the mining front but, increasingly it seems, in technology companies associated with micro electro- mechanical systems or MEMS.

If Warren Buffett’s maxim that you should only own a business you understand has any validity, those pouring their hard-earned cash into Audio Pixels, Electro Optic Systems and this week’s favourite, Panorama Synergy, must be very brainy indeed.

For the third time in two weeks a MEMS-based stock has shot up, delivering lucky investors three and four times their money in a matter of months.

MEMS are sensors that do things like turning on the windscreen wipers when it rains or flipping a mobile phone’s screen when it’s turned sideways. One of these companies says it’s a market worth $14 billion that is growing at 13 per cent a year and will be worth over $22bn by 2018. You can see why investors are getting excited.

With any such stock, “show me the money!” is the thing to say. On this front, the answers we are getting indicate that revenues won’t be coming any time soon. More likely, before too long, investors will be asked to put their hands back in their pockets. Right now it’s as good a ride as any. That is, until it isn’t.

Audio Pixels (AKP) believes it has developed the world’s first digital speaker and may one day be able to reduce the audio power needs in a mobile phone from 30 per cent to less than 10 per cent. Instead of having a loud speaker in your ear, this company believes it can use the MEMS to send the sound directly from the chips themselves. It has just over $2 million in cash.

Electro Optic Systems (EOS) is probably the most advanced of the three, which last week struck a deal with Lockheed Martin to track space debris and its announcement said that it plans on building a facility in Western Australia to be operational in early 2016. This might not exactly be a MEMS technology, but to our untrained eye, it seems close enough. The company says it “develops and produces products incorporating advanced electro-optic technologies for the aerospace market”. It had $1.5m in cash at 30 June.

Panorama Synergy’s (PSY) technology excited the market this week, prompting the stock to shoot up 50 per cent on Thursday after an announcement that indicated that its LumiMEMS optical technology could revolutionise the MEMS industry because its product could replace the electronic impulse which moves the cantilever causing your windscreen wipers to move.

The company has $1 million in the bank.

Richard Hemming edits www.undertheradarreport.com.au. He does not own shares in any of the stocks mentioned.