WBT Industry Related Off Topic., page-402

"its just memory"

You've said that a few times today. You might be in for a surprise. Some things to consider:

• There is no way known as yet, to scan the bit states of WBT's ReRam, making it about the most secure non-volatile memory yet developed
• It is Rad-Hard certified
• It could be the natural choice for use in neuromorphic processing

Even disregarding the above, WBT will be swept up in any chip trade war between China and the West. When the barriers start to go up you don't want to be caught on the wrong side. The opening salvos have already been fired. I think the main thing keeping us safe from serious escalation is mutually assured economic destruction.

Most of the fabs in China are foreign owned (TSMC, Samsung, Intel etc.), so Chinese manufacturers are usually buying their chips from foreign owned companies even when they are made in China (TSMC alone accounts for about 90% of global production of microprocessors, and about a quarter over all, of chips of all types). China have actually identified this as a strategic problem,and in recent years and have been trying to fix it. However, due to the very high barriers to entry, they seem to have been struggling so far. Here are some links:
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/25/980305760/a-cautionary-tale-for-chinas-ambitious-chipmakers
https://www.asiafinancial.com/china-gives-up-on-20bn-wuhan-chipmaking-fiasco
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-06-29/How-realistic-are-China-s-semiconductor-ambitions--1beSicnqeha/index.html
https://asiatimes.com/2021/01/get-real-about-the-chinese-semiconductor-industry/

I don't think WBT is in any danger of being "locked into a specialist niche" as you put it. The embedded market is just the first step. It has been identified by management as the fastest path to market. Early adopters are likely to come from the defense and aerospace sectors simply because, for them, performance advantages far outweigh cost considerations. Again, there is little risk of WBT getting locked in to that market. Their ReRAM should be far cheaper to make than competing technologies, so as manufacturing scales up and unit cost comes down, the technology will be adopted by the wider market. Stand alone memory will then follow.

NB: The above post should not be construed as financial advice.