Thanks for the link. Pasted a auto transcription to help search...

Thanks for the link. Pasted a auto transcription to help search for keywords (it's not perfect but hey) in case anyone's interested.

The bits that mention Brussels/IMEC:

And this is one of the discussions I'll be having when I go up to Brussels next week.

So I've never been invited to a meeting in Brussels before.

And the significance of the information we've been out for produce, you know, they want

me to come up and have a chat with the CEO and other individuals up there.

So I'm up there for three days next week.

And the fact that you've been invited to Brussels, I guess, kind of indicates what the response

has been.

But have you been hearing from, you know, like the Samsungs of the world, the big US tech

companies, like they...

No, but a peace prize.

Yeah, what's the global response being?

Well, clearly I can't answer that question.

So, this is obviously always short term, medium term and long term goals.

And so we need to go and sit down with, I'm at the reason I'm going on Monday up to Brussels

is to sit down with them and say, look, this is where we're at.

What do you guys think we should be doing next?

And so that's to be determined.

So that determines then your medium term goal as well.

But the long term goal is clearly to, as I said before, to have the company bought by

a major player.

And one of the reasons why we've been able to work with IMAC, because IMAC and the cellshave tried to sort of do this themselves and have failed.

Complete transcription:

Well, I learned it 20 years ago.

Welcome back to another episode of Uncovered by Equitymates, a podcast where we shine

a light on some of Australia's and some of the global small caps that don't get enough

analyst attention.

I'm here with my uncovered buddy, Ren.

How are you?

I'm very good, Bryce.

Very excited for this episode.

We love this series Uncovered.

It's our opportunity to explore some of the lesser known and less covered companies on

the ASX and around the world, as you said.

And I think the thing that I'm reminded of over and over again as we speak to these company

leaders is just how many small companies are out there working on like really interesting

problems or really challenging problems.

And it's just it's great that we get to speak to them and learn about them.

We've spoken to companies working on medical devices, which I thought was overly technical

for me.

Well, let me tell you about the company that we're speaking about today.

Because if you thought monitoring stroke victims or imaging hearts was technical, let me take

you to the world of flash and DRAM and re-ram storage.

Yes.

Today we are speaking with the executive chairman of 4DS memory, David McCauliff.

We delve into the details of what 4DS is and their recent success of the fourth platform

lot.

A bit of jargon there, you'll understand it in a moment.

But they're doing some pretty fascinating things at a level of incredible engineering.

Yeah, I think because David gets quite deep quite quickly.

So I think computer memory, there are two sort of technologies that make up most computer

memory these days.

DRAM and flash memory.

DRAM is most very quickly, but it doesn't have long-term storage.

It's very expensive.

Flash not quick, but can hold stuff long-term, very cheap.

Highly overly simplified, but that's sort of the basics.

A long line of technology producers have tried to create a third class that sits in the middle,

known as re-ram.

DRAM, re-ram flash.

That's the sort of the jargon that you need to know.

Companies like Intel, like Western Digital have tried to build re-ram products, and none

of them have really nailed it.

I think we were speaking offline with David and he was like, you know, one company that

did it, they only sold like a billion dollars worth of the product.

Billion dollars sounds like a lot for me, but we're talking about massive industries here.

DRAM is about a hundred billion US dollars, red flash is about 60 billion US dollars.

So re-ram exists, but no one's really established it as a category and it was like a class of

memory in the same way that DRAM and flash memory, and definitely not the market size

of those two.

And so that's what 40S is trying to do.

They've got a different way of attacking the problem.

I think David was saying they move like six oxygen molecules and that's how they store

the memory.

So don't ask me about the technicals there.

So 40S is trying to sort of pick up where some of these previous companies have left

off in developing that technology and really trying to take a big step forward and establish

it as a meaningful third class of memory.

Is that a fair?

Yep, that's fair.

We're both swimming well outside of circle of competence in this interview as you'll

hear.

So before we jump into a reminder that this is not a buy-hold sell recommendation for

40S memory while we are licensed, we're not aware of your financial circumstances.

So any information is for education and entertainment purposes.

Any advice is general.

But with that said, let's get stuck in his interview with David McAuliffe from 40S memory.

Well, David, welcome to Uncovered by Equitymates.

We're keen to have you here.

Thanks very much, guys.

Now to get started, we need to understand a bit about the memory and storage industry.

40S operates in a hot industry at the moment, semiconductors, it's one that is top of mind

for a lot of the Equitymates community, and to understand 40S we need to understand memory

technology.

So can you provide us with an overview of the memory and storage markets, its different

segments and use cases?

Yeah, no worries.

So what we operate with at the moment hasn't changed for a long, long time, so it's probably

30 or 40 years.

You've got a couple of things in your device and your computer and your phone and in data

centers.

The two main things are called DRAM and FLASH.

And so DRAM sort of like your operating system.

So when you're tapping me a text message, you're operating in DRAM and that memory cell

or that cell operates at sort of 30 nanoseconds and it can turn on and off like a trillion

times.

But I can't remember anything and it has to refresh itself every one-six of a second.

But once you've sent the text to me, it gets saved in a thing called FLASH and FLASH can

operate 10,000 times on and off without failure.

But it's retrieval and the way it operates is nowhere near the speed of DRAM.

So what the industry has been looking for is something which is a combination of both.

So on the 23rd of August, we announced that we had characteristics which are really close

to DRAM.

And then we announced again about a month later that we will improve that.

So what we have is a technology which has DRAM characteristics.

We have faster than DRAM in terms of speed.

We can remember stuff for a certain period of time which is important and we can actually

cycle our cell about in excess of three billion times without failure.

So we're really leaning towards being a complement to DRAM and it's something the industry has

been looking for for a long, long time.

So Intel and Micron produced a technology called Optane.

But Optane hasn't been the success that they hoped it would be.

And so we are sort of starting to get into that space where we can be a complement to

DRAM and what we have hasn't changed for sort of 30 years.

So DRAM has been around for a long time.

FLASH has been around for a long time.

DRAM is a $100 billion industry, FLASH is about a $50-60 billion industry.

And so we're looking for the industries looking for some complementary technology to fit into

the architecture that already exists.

So we're not going to change what exists at the moment.

DRAM is not going away and FLASH is not going away.

But the industry wants some sort of complementary technology to take it forward.

And that's what we think we probably have at the moment.

So David, there's DRAM, there's FLASH, and then 40S is sort of pioneering this RE-RAM

as I think you call it.

And you sort of explained there when we're typing a message.

DRAM is great for the immediate and then it gets moved across to FLASH storage.

And please correct me if I'm getting this wrong at any point.

No, you're wrong.

That's right.

Yeah.

Help us understand where RE-RAM then sits and how, you know, like take the example of the

phone that I'm typing out a text or maybe it's a different use case.

But help us understand where RE-RAM then replaces or sits in that tech ecosystem, that memory

stack.

And I guess help us understand why it's a good solution, why it's a better solution

than the current DRAM FLASH dichotomy.

So RE-RAM's been around for a while, right?

So there is RE-RAM product actually in the market.

So a desktop is a company in the US which has a RE-RAM technology.

And there's lots of, the RE-RAM is a big circle of technology that sits around RE-RAM.

But we operate completely different to RE-RAM.

So most RE-RAMs have an atomic wire.

It's called a filament which goes from the top to the bottom and that's what creates

your memory.

So we don't do it like that at all.

So we're completely different.

We're an area-based RE-RAM.

So we use the entire surface of the cell to create the memory.

We don't have a filament.

And so this watch makes us unique in terms of the RE-RAM space.

And one of the reasons why we've been able to work with IMAC, because IMAC and the cells

have tried to sort of do this themselves and have failed.

So we've been in IMAC since 2017.

And so we use the entire surface of the cell to create the memory.

So that means we have a high density memory because what you want to be in your, if you're

going into the architecture of a phone or your computer or a data center, you want to take

up as less space as you possibly can.

Because all that space is worth billions of dollars.

So we want to be high density so that we can take up as little space as possible but create

as much memory as possible.

And so that's what we've been able to sort of start to show that we can do.

And so high density memory, area-based memory is really important.

And that's what we've shown over the, from the 23rd of August to now.

And it's taken a little bit longer than we thought it would take.

And we've spent sort of $40 or $50 million doing it.

But now we're really at the pointy end of where we are showing that our technology has

some real relevance in this area.

And I think that we will get attention from lots of different organisations around the

world and household names because this is something the industry has been looking for

for a long, long time.

And there's been no significant change at all in the architecture of how we operate

our systems.

And so we're becoming very, very relevant.

So David, who do you anticipate some of your largest customers will be once you get past

this final stage of testing and proving to the industry and market?

Yeah, that's a good question, Bryce.

But we're not, actually you're not going to be looking for customers.

We're not looking for a licensing portfolio.

There's not many licensing companies out there that have been hugely successful.

So our view is, in my background, it's mainly been in life sciences.

So the equivalent is to give an analogy, if you go and do what now, some of us try to

hold 100 patients and you get cognitive improvement in those people, then someone like Pfizer

or Galaxo is going to come and buy you.

And they'll spend $200 million and they'll open up 50 centres around the world and they'll

go and prove to the FDA that this technology or that drug actually works.

So we're doing the same thing.

So we're operating on IMAC manufacturing equipment, which is the same equipment that

Intel have or San Sound have.

And so we're showing them that on IMAC equipment, we can get these results, which you can get

on your own results.

So therefore, you need to go and spend the 250 million bucks in the two years and 50

engineers to make this into a product.

So we're only trying to prove a proof of concept.

We're not going to be a manufacturer of chips or anything like that.

So it's the same sort of concept.

So we've just got to get to the point where we can say, listen guys, we've done it on

their device.

You can do it on your device.

And so why you go?

So that's industry standard sort of stuff.

Just take a step back and talk about this trial because I think, you know, if people

have looked at the 40s share price, they can see the results of it.

You've rocketed up since you announced the results, but take us behind the scenes, and

especially for people like Bryce and I who are non-technical, give us an understanding

of, you know, what this trial was, the results of it, and just how meaningful that is for

40s as a company.

So I got involved in this company in 2013, and they didn't have any data at all.

But one of the guys who was involved was a guy called Jim Doran, who's an ex-Crosspoint

venture partner, and Crosspoint Ventures is one of the most successful venture capital

firms in California.

And I sat down with James for a couple of days, and we really thought this through.

And we all agreed that, you know, we are treating a population of people, unlike in life sciences.

So in life sciences, if you're, I always go to Alzheimer's disease, because I've found

it in the Alzheimer's company, right?

So if you're treating a population of Alzheimer's patients, you're probably looking at 60 or

70 million people who have Alzheimer's disease that you're trying to help.

This is not a subset of the population.

This is everybody in the world who has a device or a tablet or a computer.

So the opportunity is absolutely mind-blowingly big.

And you're talking D-Rams 100 billion flashes 50 or 60 billion, whatever it might be.

So we thought that even though they didn't have any data, and we already invested $10

million into it, that we thought we should kick the can down the road.

So we decided that we would both get involved with this heavily.

And so, you know, we spent another $40 million on it, and we've gone through trials and tribulations.

And but the interesting thing about it is it's an engineering exercise.

It's completely different to life sciences.

So in life sciences, if you go into a, you know, phase two trial, you put a molecule into

a person and take two years for that trial to get a result.

Whilst that trial's ongoing, you've gotten zero information and you can't change a single

atom on that molecule.

That's it.

And then it's binary.

Once you get the result, it's either worked or it hasn't worked.

Here, it's completely different in that every week you're getting engineering outcomes you

can think about and look at.

And if the train's sort of coming off the track, you can say, well, we need to change

that and we need to do this to get it back on track.

That's what we've done for the last 10 years.

So you know, we have, it has taken a bit longer than we thought, but innovation takes time.

And particularly what we're doing is incredibly, incredibly difficult, but it's incredibly

important because it will change the way we operate and change our lives if we get this

right.

It changes the way you use your phone and changes the way you use information.

It's amazing.

So we've got to a point now where we've had, you know, interesting information, interesting

information, interesting information.

And now we've got to the point where we've changed certain things how we operate, changed

certain ways how we test what we're doing.

And we've come up with a system and results which show us that we are really getting close

to being able to show that we can actually do what we think we can do, which is, you know,

it's really, really innovative and really, really important.

So to be able to show that you've got speed, your, your, your self and operate at, you

know, three times faster than DRAM, which is DRAM's 30 nanoseconds, we're 9.5 and you've

got over three billion times your self can turn on and off without failure.

And you can remember some information at the same time.

That is really, really unique.

And so it's something that, you know, we're really proud of that we've spent 10 years

doing it.

And the future for us is looking really, really promising.

And it's really rocket, so it's really rocket science sort of stuff.

But from, I think we've sort of, we've kicked the rocket science out now.

And so it's more about how, what we do going forward in terms of operating our technology

in ourselves to get to the point where we want to be.

And so it's really, really exciting sort of the next 12 months.

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tmd.

Welcome back to uncovered by equity mates.

Today we're speaking to David McCall of the executive chairman of 4DS memory.

So just to clarify, David, and I think you touched on it earlier, but is there a world

where this replaces DRAM and flash or?

It's a really good question.

So nothing gets replaced, right?

So DRAM is just exceptional.

DRAM is one of the most magnificent technologies you've got in our systems.

We don't get a lot of it because it's pretty expensive in terms of the cost per gigabyte.

So you don't get a lot of stuff in your device, but you get a whole heap of flash because

it's really cheap.

So flash is not going away.

Flash doesn't need to be replaced.

And DRAM doesn't need to be replaced.

What people are looking for is something that sort of sits in between.

So they want a technology which has the characteristics of both.

So they want something that's really, really fast in terms of its operating right operates,

which we've been able to show we can.

You need to be able to turn yourself on and off lots and lots of times, which I'm really

been excessive, three billion, and you want to be able to show you've got some sort of,

you know, they call it persistent memory.

So we've been able to show we've got that.

So we're just going to sort of slot ourselves into the architecture that already exists

in our systems.

And our guys have been in this for a long, long time.

So they understand where we need to sort of position ourselves.

And I make understand where we need to position ourselves as well.

And this is one of the discussions I'll be having when I go up to Brussels next week.

So I've never been invited to a meeting in Brussels before.

And the significance of the information we've been out for produce, you know, they want

me to come up and have a chat with the CEO and other individuals up there.

So I'm up there for three days next week.

It's a fascinating one.

And it was something we were wondering because we can see the response in Australia by the

share price.

It feels like, and you know, we've seen some articles talking about the results from Australian

publications, but we're going to ask what the global response has been.

And the fact that you've been invited to Brussels, I guess, kind of indicates what the response

has been.

But have you been hearing from, you know, like the Samsungs of the world, the big US tech

companies, like they...

No, but a peace prize.

Yeah, what's the global response being?

Well, clearly I can't answer that question.

But you know, in terms of the share price, you know, the share price has gone from sort

of three cents or four cents to 21 now, it's back to 12 or 12 and a half, whatever it might

be on, you know, the volume that trades in the stock is incredible, which is really good

because that's what you want.

Because it means that, you know, people can look at the share price and think, well, I'm

going to invest in that, but I'm not going to get cry-pottered.

But it means I can get out if I want to get out.

So the volume is really, really important.

But you know, if you look at some comparables, you know, even here or around the world, you

know, 220 million bucks or whatever we're capped at.

I think there's a lot more value that can be extracted from this technology.

So, you know, there's a couple of powerful powerables on our OS X, one's worth 7 or 8

million bucks was 1.6 or something, and another one was 2 billion now, 400 million or something

like that.

So, you know, I think that, you know, I personally think we're significantly undervalued and how

we get that recognition, we just need to keep sort of talking to people and make them understand

what been out of the tree, which is just incredible.

So I think that the valuation will change as time goes on.

Interestingly for us, we're now in the best position we've ever been in that we've got

the best results we've ever had.

And you know, as I said before, the rocket science has sort of been kicked out of the

park panel.

So we're just back to, you know, we're now just focusing on, you know, developing it

more and making more improvements.

But we don't need to raise any money because the share prices kicked up.

There's a whole heap of options that have been exercised.

And so we've now got sort of more money than we've ever had before.

So we're, so if people are thinking we're going to go raise money and waiting for a

share purchase plan or waiting for a placement, it's not going to happen.

Because we've got enough money for the next two years.

And hopefully, you know, we're not, I'm not seeing it around here talking about the next

two years because I've been doing the intent.

So, you know, it's a third of my work in life.

I've been doing this.

So, but we are now at a really important stage where, you know, I've almost done myself out

of a job because we don't need to raise any money.

So, you know, we're hoping to, you know, get more significant results, show people that

they can take this to the next level.

And someone comes and says, I've seen enough here.

Let me take over and I'll just make this product.

So then looking to the future and for the many thousands of, I guess, retail investors

that are listening to this, interested in your place in the industry, what's the, is

the next major hurdle for you or the next major milestone just to sell?

If someone's sitting here thinking about investing, what does the future hold for them

as an investor and is it just getting on the journey for that exit?

I think that's to be determined, right?

So, this is obviously always short term, medium term and long term goals.

And so we need to go and sit down with, I'm at the reason I'm going on Monday up to Brussels

is to sit down with them and say, look, this is where we're at.

What do you guys think we should be doing next?

And so that's to be determined.

So that determines then your medium term goal as well.

But the long term goal is clearly to, as I said before, to have the company bought by

a major player.

And it could be anyone from a company, from a memory maker or a memory acquirer.

So it doesn't necessarily have to be someone who makes memory and makes chips.

It could be someone who says, hey, listen, I want that.

And the guys who are memory makers is make it for me.

So there's definitely different types of companies that would be interested in this.

And if we get to where we think we're going to get, then it's household names, sort of

companies that are going to be interested in this.

It's a really significant, really important thing that we're doing.

And it's something the industry has been looking for for a long time.

So it's really challenging.

It's really interesting.

And if we can just get through the next part of the journey, it's going to be just fantastic.

And it always carries risk.

Everything innovation always carries risk.

And the stuff we're dealing with is the cells are like 3000s smaller than the width of a

human hair.

So it's mind boggling.

It's a little machine that sits in the corner that makes these things and God knows how it

works.

But it does.

And you can't really get your head around it because the way we work is we move six

oxygen molecules between two layers.

And that creates the memory.

Like how the hell does that work?

Right?

I don't know David, you tell us.

I don't know myself.

So they tell me it does.

And from the results we've got, it clearly does.

It's incredible.

Yeah.

This whole world, you're talking about like 60 nanometer memory cells.

You're talking about right speeds of 27 nanoseconds.

It's just like nine and a half seconds.

Oh, there you go.

You've ever sold it.

It's just it's wild.

And I think like it's a fascinating story and a journey that you've been on.

I guess to wrap it up, David, I'm going to ask one more non-technical question and whether

it is 40s continuing on and developing this technology yourself or whether it's partnering

or selling with a bigger, maybe a household name.

If you think 10, 20 years into the future as this technology is fully realized and commercialized

and rolled out, how will it affect us in our day-to-day lives?

Like if this is in every phone and in every computer, what will it change?

Like, you know, will it make our devices better, cheaper?

Like what's the impact of this going to be over the long term?

It will change everything, innovation always comes and it's just time and money.

And we always think, you know, oh, we've just got our next year phone and it's got all this

new stuff in it and it's all fantastic.

But that hasn't been developed a week ago.

That's been developed five years ago.

And so five years of development then ends up in your phone that you get next week.

And so here, this has been 10 years of development.

If it ends up in your phone or ends up in a data center or ends up in your computer,

it will change the way you operate and the things you do.

And depending on whether it ends up in AI or whatever it might be, it will fundamentally

change loads of stuff.

It's really incredible.

It really is.

It just is.

And it's just, you know, it's time to keep me awake at night thinking about it.

And, you know, it's a really, really important thing that we're working on.

All good things take a while and all good things cost money to develop.

But we're not big spenders.

We spent sort of four million bucks a year.

So we've spent sort of 40 or $50 million on this so far.

And if we can get to the next bit, to the next little bit we need to do, then it's going

to change the way you operate your systems and the way you operate your life.

It really is that important.

And it's a little bit, you know, disconcerting when you think about it.

And it does treat me awake at night sometimes.

Well, I hope you get some sleep.

So David, it's no doubt that you're at an exciting point in the progression and history

of 40s.

It's been a decade to this point.

I guess a congratulations.

But we're also excited to see where this progresses.

So thank you so much for coming on, sharing your journey, you know, entrepreneur journey

and also the journey of 40s.

As I said at the top, it's in an industry that I know a lot of the equity mates community

are very interested in.

And I'm sure they took a lot out of this episode.

We'll include the links to a lot of the reports to the results in our show notes for the audience

as well.

But David, thank you so much.

It was an absolute pleasure.

Okay, guys.

I'll come see you next time.

Love it.

I can't wait.

Thanks, David.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Uncovered by Equity Mates.