Big deal. It will happen before or soon after the ASM. Dr. Lebby will be prepared with updates on progress and will clarify the persistent doubts of some people. He can say things that will further tell shareholders things are moving ahead well and commercialization is SOON.
It takes a long time (years) to finalize technology that disrupts an industry including getting a large number of users in place to scale it up. It took ASML almost 3 decades ( and many biilions of dollars) to get its technology to work properly and to subsequently disrupt a stagnant chip sector. Granted, ASML's tech is even more complicated but unique technology has to be right the first time when introduced.

Maybe next week. Maybe the week after. Maybe next month.There are likely many potential agreements at various stages. I would say we are a lot closer than several months ago. The first contract will have a lot of bearing how future contracts are agreed upon so it better be done right.

Yes Ted, you are probably right that 12 months ago when Lightwave said they were in commercial discussions there were still issues that needed to be resolved and clarified. We have seen improvements in the technology over the past year and testing of product
has continued to come back more robust as time goes on.
Commercial discussions is still a vague term because there are different levels of commitment leading up to money changing hands. Initial partnering where you are opening up your technology to a prospective contract partner would have an agreement that would talk about the future monteziation in vague terms. There may well have been milestones built into what was likely a memorandum of understanding (MOUs are not legally binding contracts). Achieving milestones would likely lead to advancement in the contracting process. Why would LWLG get into an agreement to transfer much of their technology to a possible future paying partner without some incentive of future monetization? With an emerging technology that hasn't answered all issued as LWLG had 12 months ago I can see that it was not possible 12 months ago to have a completed deal.
You continue to bring up the issue of Dr. Lebby talking about "commercial discussions" and not delivering as if he is deceiving us. I am just pointing out that commefcial discussions can be open ended and likely contains milestones that must be met for a final contract can be signed off on by both sides.

You are absolutely right Killer. There are numerous stories about small tech companies that disrupt their industry with truly innovative products. You must have a technological genius who can have a vision and roadmap on how to proceed making a better product at the helm. Sometimes you see a finance guy as CEO with the help of a CTO. That company will usually not be as successful as invariably the focus is one keeping the money coming in. The best example is Paul Otellini the CEO of Intel when Steve Jobs asked Intel to make the chip for the I Phone. Otellini turned Jobs down and this decision marked the downfall of Intel as smartphones exploded into the market. Intel lost out on a lot business and allowed competition to challenge its X86 dominance. Otellini was a finance smart MBA guy and couln't have the necessary vision on where the market was going.

Once upon a time there was a giant of a company called Intel. Intel made computer chips on their X86 architecture. Nobody could do it better. Intel was best friends with Windows who was also quite popular and this helped to keep Intel on top of the world. Intel was making lots and lots of money. He was ubiquitous.
There was a little guy called ARM who wanted to get much bigger. He had an idea to teach others how to make computer chips that would put a lot of transistors onto a small chip. Arm thought he could license how to make these chips and other foundries would manufacture them but ARM could only find a few smaller friends. One day Apple went to Intel and asked if Intel would make small, lower power chips for their new toy called smartphone. It would be the first computer in a cell phone. Intel was on top of the world already and said "that is too small a job for me" and turned Apple away. Apple found ARM and asked ARM to license their architecture and Samsung to use it to make small, low power chips to fit in a smartphone. It worked very, very well. Everyone wanted one of these smartphones. Soon others came to ARM to license their architechture on how to make smaller, low power chips and put them into smartphones and anything else that was small. After all there many more things that are small than are big. After a few years Apple was making more money than Intel and ARM became so popular he became ubiquitous.
The moral of the story is: If you don't innovate and grow someone else will steal the show.

This story is of course true and I used information from a very nice book on the history of chips called Chip Wars by Chris Miller. I hope you can see the analogy between this story and LWLG. Lightwave has been the little guy with some good ideas at a crossroads with the industry needing new innovation. The plan is to license their product and knowhow on how to use it and utilize foundries to quickly ramp production and sell a smaller, faster, more cost effective (probably) and greener product to the world. I know someone who keeps telling us it will become ubiquitous. It could come sooner than many people think.

I believe the reasons I mentioned in my post are relevant but not gullible newbies running to buy stock in Lightwave. As I said, the majority of heavily shorted stocks have recently done well so I believe it is largely due to changing sentiment in the market. Several people including myself and especially you pointed out there are likely flaws in the the answers Google Bard gave so there is a need to be cautious. I don't agree that LWLG belongs in the penny stock category where pump and dump schemes can drive the price up and down dramatically. The company has much more credibility as a viable company than those you are suggesting. Most pump and dump schemes arise in companies hardly anyone knows or cares about. People buying such a stock do so with small amounts of money they can afford like buying a lottery ticket. The money involved would not move the price of this stock much if at all. The shareholder base between long term holders of LWLG and funds offers stability for the price. The long term price decline has been due to macroeconomic factors for over a year and the rising short selling due to the risk off environment.

The stock price will go up on real news worthy enough to bring in shareholders and lead to short sellers covering their positions. If they were smart they have started to do so in anticipation of the news.

I like when the price of LWLG goes up. I certainly don't believe it has gone up because Proto did a search on Bard that suggested LWLG is working with specific companies. It is ridiculous to think that an onslaught of newbie lemmings reading Proto's Bard search are driving up the stock price. Some of what is in the search may be true but no one knows except Lightwave management so we have to wait to hear concrete information released from reliable sources, especially the company.

Recommendations from analysts frequently drives buying and some of the stock increase is likely due to the very positive comments in the Belgian newsletter as Lewrock stated.

Macroeconomic forces are also in play. We are at or near the top of interest rate increases. The rising rates made it much easier for short sellers to beat up on Lightwave. Rising rates are like poison to small companies not making any money. Just about all are down over the past year from stockholders wanting to avoid risk and short sellers wanting to make a profit. There is positive comments about a possible debt ceiling deal. Again, this means lower risk which is good for small pre-revenue companies.

I looked at a list of the most shorted stocks. Looking at the top 100 the majority had a great day today similar to the percentage gain of LWLG. This is the result of purchases being up and less shorting holding the price down.

We are getting close to the ASM and I am sure some are buying placing a bet on Dr. Lebby to surprise. That may intensify over the next few trading days. I hope he delivers. I believe he will or at least he will offer news that will be meaningful.

AI currently is like perkinamine Series 1. It has flaws and needs upgrading. I wonder if you can search it to come up with ideas to fix it.

It is great to see the stock price go up and so very fast. So, what's up?
Some say Lightwave is working with all those Ai unmasked foundries.
Some say it is investors recently recommended to the stock by conference or analyst.
Some say if it is going up, it must be leaked info.
Some say we are close to the ASM so good news is coming.
Some say most Nasdaq stocks are up.
Some say it is index buying.
Some say managed funds are buying.
Some say momentum traders are piling in.
Some say shorts are covering.
Some say as the price is rising no shorts are using naked shorting practices as it is a losing game with a rising market.
Some say it is the start of a squeeze.
Some will say the price was pushed down too far and too fast.

Most of us say "it's about time". Time will tell if this strength will persist. People tend to attribute a day like this to an event. The market is much too complicated to focus on one explanation and more than likely many of the above reasons are playing a role. A very important one is computer trading using algorithims. As much as 70-80% of trading in stocks are computer driven with algorithims set for target price, speed of price change, volume or just speed of orders. Computer driven wash ttrading can use many small orders to run the price up and do the same thing down. If that doesn't add complexity in comes Ai. Ai can enhance computerized trading by helping you to predict price action before you see it so you can front run the price. This has the tendency to add to volatility as well. Ai has been increasing its use of late. All of the above add to volatility. Volatility exhausts some shareholders and they sell and give up. Retail holders of stock are at a considerable disadvantage.

So what can you do. If you do your homework well you can hold through the ups and downs until you no longer can for personal reasons. This run today can be quite short lived or it might be based on things to come 'in the near term". There is a lot going on in the market on a day to day basis that we just don't know about, Guessing makes us feel better to carry on.

Proto your search remains quite interesting. You are the Sherlock Holmes on this thread.

SilOrix are manufacturing polymer slot modulators. The polymer has to be applied during manufacture so I believe they are their own foundry. albeit a relatively smaller one. At the PIC conference they talked about manufacturing including doing wafer scale poling successfully.

Proto, a very impressive list. It does excite the imagination. One caution is that Bard has made mistakes. It will come to some conclusions based on educated guesses. At the very least there must be some info out there that has linked LWLG to these companies. An assumption could possibly be made based on a mention somewhere about these companies working with EOPs.

Of course we need to hear it from the company. If it is true, I don't believe Lebby will be able to hold information back much longer.

Another thought, it is curious that SilOrix is not on the list.

Ted there is no doubt that the retail contingent is comprised of stockholders with different degrees of commitment to holding firm even as the stock price decreases. I believe there is a large amount of stock in the hands of very dedicated longs who remain very profitable on paper. They have a great deal of experience with the history of the company's development over the span of years as well as more knowledge of of management, board members and employees based on opportunities to converse with them on progress and plans. All this allows them to be more patient than newer stockholders who may have significant losses on paper. These newer stockholders may not have that tight grip on shares especially if their overall financial position doesn't allow them to continue to take on risk. They may use stop losses for protection and lose shares as the price declines.

Then there are traders who trade on momentum and they will choose to go long, sell or even short stocks that have large movements compared to the overall market. In down markets stocks like LWLG are out of favor based on a lack of revenue and its small size and as a result will drop more on bad news or uncertainty. Traders will look for this kind of company not taking time to look at the technology. They will see the large short position and know they have short sellers working the price down so they have backing and pile on adding to downward movement..

There is a very large short position. I have never seen a stock with so many days to cover. As institutions hold and a large majority of retail investors hold this tells me that a very large amount of shares are holders of short positions exercising control of the share price on a day to day basis especially on big down days like we have seen lately. The volume seems large day to day which typically occurs when algorithims are working the direction of the share price usually with many, many small trades. This is seen especially with small company stocks which don't often have news that gives certanty to near term financial gain.

From a news basis, LWLG is a sleepy stock that is easy to manipulate. it will remain so as long as there is uncertainty. I for one plan on holding as I have put in a lot of time getting to know the technology, have seen steady progress and believe the market will embrace what they have to offer.It is possible we have been seeing a full court press by short sellers to get the price further down prior to significant news.The Quarterly report was not significant news but there are others who will try and make it so.

LWLG is a lot like a pre-revenue pharmaceutical company that just completed a successful phase 3 study on its new medication. Suppose the medication was proven more effective than current medications with less side effects. If it worked on a large market like diabetes or cancer its value would be enhanced. If it had the ability to be expanded to additional indications that would make it more valuable. The company's market cap would zoom up to a 2-3 billion dollar valuation even before the FDA approved as the market would assume it would be approved. The medication took years and cost a lot to be researched to get to this point. The medication doesn't cost a lot to make but will be highly profitable once introduced to the market.

Lightwave's polymers added to semiconducter materials are more effective (3X faster), safer with less side effects ( more stable, uses less power and as a result produces less heat). The smaller size makes them more versitile in devices. They probably will cost less due to less hardware. There likely are multiple applications for use making the potential market quite large. It doesn't cost a lot to make the polymers but like medications the cost is in the development and the presence of patents. Once its polymers are in use, the ramp to being profitable will be fast as it will be a very caiptal light company. With so many similarities, here we sit under one half billion in market cap instead of a 2-3 billion market cap.

Unfair, I think so. Let's face it, people understand a medication that works for diabetes or cancer better than what polymers do to improve many forms of technology. Tech companies are somewhat out of favor than usual. The pharmaceutical company had a lot of free advertising as its medication was being brought a long. Lighrtwave is under NDAs. LWLG is one of the best medications for what ails the internet yet not many people outside of those involved with silicon photonics know about it. Dr. Lebby said we have to stay tuned for many positive press releases in the coming months. I guess it can't come soon enough.

Shorts and traders are having fun. Shareholders, not so much. The price is aggressively pushed down as some think as we get close to the ASM with no deal made public, there will be none before May 25. That may or may not be after all Lebby has been saying a commercial deal in the near term which in plain english says in the very near future. He would not say that unless the deal is close. The ASM is, for all practical purposes, not guaranteed as the time frame but probably close to it.

This makes what is said at the ASM very, very important. It will be a showcase to give a lot of detail to everything important. Remember the 2021 ASM? It was stellar and laid out in detail a roadmap for technology and predicting a time frame for commercialization readiness that for the most part has been kept up. The share price took off soon after what Dr. Lebby said even before moving to the Nasdaq. In addition we are down with other near revenue companies (which is the group most behind over the past year).

The ASM has to be his best presentation yet.

If there is still haggling over the terms of the contracts, the potential partners perhaps are in a better bargaining position knowing Lebby's goals for deals by the ASM and shareholders holding him to those goals. If so, final deals will come after the ASM.

As an investor, you have to consider is this just the time it takes to make a deal that will significantly impact both companies for the next several years or is it a failure of the technology and there is something still holding success back. Getting 1 or 2 deals done by the ASM is a big target date and tension is rising as the date is close. There is hope but no guarantee there will be deals by May 25. If you believe the technology is ready and is going to be a must have in second half 2023 and beyond and you don't need to sell shares now, waiting through the noise and the shorts risky attempts to drive the price down could be the best answer.
Buckle in, there is a lot of uncertainty building in the market with political fighting over the debt limit. The overall market will be turbulent "in the near term."

Pardon my incomplete message as I did not mean to send it out yet. I started to write about something that does not have great significance now but it is where the market is headed over the next several years. It is the issue of optical computing. This is being researched at the same time as quantum computing. Optical computing (also known as photonic computing) uses light to perform computations and data processing tasks while quantum computing uses quantum mechanics. Optical computing takes advantage of light's faster speed and low loss transmission and like quantum computing can allow multiple channels to communicate at the same time to speed data processing.

I bring this up as we have wondered why Dr. Lebby keeps bringing up the word ubiquitous. We know about the polymer applications to allow faster speed between devices but to truly be ubiquitous it should be in advanced devices. I would imagine (I couldn't begin to look at the how) Lightwave's polymers could be additive to components in an optical computer.

Certainly I am putting the cart before the horse but I believe Dr. Lebby is looking well into the future having talked about Lightwave's polymers having decades to run.

This is an interesting article to get an overview of optical computing. I couldn't get a clickable link to work but here is the webpage: dataconomy.com/2022/12/15/optical-computing-photonic/
or you can simply use Google search for The rise of integrated photonics 12/15/2022.

While we sit and wait and obsess here is an article from 12/15/22 on "The rise of integrated photonics:How light is changing the face of computing?" This is not a clickable link but you can access

Companies will do what they can to keep competitors from moving ahead and compromising sales. If they are paying attention, the DSP chip companies at least know what we know about the technology as it has been public knowledge. They know other foundries are working out the manufacturing details and that is harder for the DSP chip companies to control. Perhaps they know more than we do about who the end users are that are interested in Lightwave's tech. Could they be behind some of the shorting to keep the share price down? That is possible as it could affect accessing capital making it harder to ramp quickly except LWLG has enough capital to get started and they run a capital light enterprise. Are they trying to keep the price lower anticipating a better buyout price? All open questions.
If they are partly behind the shorting I don't think it changes much regarding a rollout, other factors are more important and up to Lightwave and partners. I do believe DSP companies are very concerned about potent competitors coming into the market. I think most of the shorting is related to the market that is staying away from pre-revenue companies making it easier to short and not face buying pressure. All of it is unimportant as long as Lightwave contininues to move into commercialization.

Retired physician. I am retired, so I have time to read tea leaves. I have had an interest in technology companies and innovation over the years. This area has big winners and a great many more losers. Cycles dictated past success or failure of tech companies. Now competition runs rampant as the technology area dominates our economy.

It all comes down to beating the competition. Harvard's Professor Clayton Christensen wrote about a theory regarding "disruptive innovation" leading to success. I believe LWLG is such a company. It will play out over the next several years. It will likely be profitable faster than most disruptors based on low costs from limited employee numbers and low manufactoring costs.

While we wait to hear about the official announcement of a contract with SilOrix, I find myself wondering how can a small foundry make millions of modulator chips to fit into transceivers? It sounds almost too good to be true.
We talk a lot about Lightwave"s ability to help turn out chips that are 3X faster and saving power by up to 90% to what is currently being used. These are great selling points but in addition, the fact that they function so well that added hardware to the chips are not needed allows for smaller size. Yes, smaller size means greater flexibility introducing them into devices in the future. From a manufacturing standpoint it seems like smaller size means running wafers at the foundry with a far greater number of modulator chips incorporated into each wafer waiting to be sliced off in the separation process. When Dr. Lebby talks about modulators that could be as much as 30X smaller than current modulator chips, that is incredible. It means a small foundry can manufacture many more slot modulator chips per wafer making the process much more efficient. That is more cost effective. It is also going to be more profitable as a result.
Taking size into account one can imagine that when SilOrix has stated it can manufacture millions of slot modulator chips, 30X smaller is a big reason they can say that. Understanding what this means, if in fact SilOrix is the first contract, a small foundry can ramp volumes of chips faster and we all reach profitability faster as a result.

It really depends on the type of announcement that is made. If there is any ambiguity about the information in the news release there will be a more muted response. A response that doesn't disclose enough details about what to expect from a financial perspective, timeliness perspective or volume perspective may be met with some doubt by some investors. It would raise doubts about whether it is enough to matter. We know that whenever Dr. Lebby has announced positive progress technologically, there is immediate doubt from some people about what is not being said due to a lack of detail. He after all has been used to holding back information we all want to hear based on NDAs and sensitive negotiations.

A better way to announce would be to be clear about what the contract means to the company financially and talking about a ramp towards a goal about volumes of product. It should be an annoucement of a conference call to follow in order to further discuss the formal initiation of commercialization and what the plans are for moving to "mass commercialization" in 2024. Stating that other contracts will be forthcoming would really begin to erase doubts.

It does appear odd that we have been identified as being in the basic materials category. It just shows how much Lightwave is misunderstood by the market. There is nothing basic about LWLG.
Dr. Lebby has said "we are a chemical company". That too doesn't tell people enough but technically it is correct.
Ultimately we should be included in the semiconductor manufacturing category. That is the point of their products, to improve the quality and stability of semiconductors in the manufacturing process.

Think of all the mutual funds and etfs that focus on the semiconductor market. That market is huge. To be included in the indexes and in semiconductor sector funds would be magical.

You are right about the large ETF's. At the same they can't time things as well as mutual funds that are managed without being required to buy a particulat stock based on an index. If nothing else the ETF's have made money loaning to shorts for over a year and averaged down on the long side to get some more shares at some point. I suspect Vanguard is still behind on the position.

Congradulations Farmsara on your making a nice profit at the end of 2021. I find trading very hard because even if you know there will be growth going forward it either comes slower than you think or unforseen macro or micro issues come up to derail your expectations. I would assume you scaled back into LWLG in 2022. It is practically impossible to do it completely right. This downturn has been long lived which has led to a lot of selling 2022 into this year making it hard to see the floor that has emerged.

Yes X, some, perhaps many shareholders have beat themselves up over not selling LWLG shares in the run up 15-20. It has become storied and often referred to. There were only few that did it effectively. The run up happened during a one month time frame 12/6/21-1/4/22. It happened during a risk off period when other small caps rose quickly along with the general market. It seemed to be a great Santa rally. I am sure folks were thinking deals could be immenent or partners would be announced so why sell now, after all deals were talked about coming in the ASM in May. Excitement was in the air. In retrospect it was accumulation by institutions then some shorting started. Once Inflation became a concern and there was talk of raising rates the share price fell along with other small caps. Shorting increased a great deal as the Fed was raising rates helping shorts to sell with greater confidence. This helped institutions to accumulate.

And here we are being hard on ourselves not to have timed it better. Most folks here are in for the long haul so it is hard to sell. You would to have had a trader's mindset to have sold some in that one month window. The bright side is Penny Longs are still ahead. Those like myself have had the opportunity to lower my basis with buys in the last several months. Good news is coming and long shareholders will win in the end by holding.

Perhaps some end users are pressing for manufacuring to get going, you and I don't know what Dr. Lebby knows.
You have been wrong about unsolvable manufacturing problems as the company has made great strides with partners who produced modulators far eclipsing what currently exists. Third party confirmation bolsters their believability over yours. The lack of a contract as yet is not technological proof of failure.

Remember it takes both companies to agree on all facets of a financial contract especially one that sets them on a new manufacturing path and will determine whether they are profitable sometime in the next year or two. Dr. Lebby set a one year timeline for a couple deals by the ASM. He seems to have all the tech issues solved and now it comes down to establishing the contract with the foundry. Both companies are not making money yet, they want to get to profitability, they have been working on the manufacturing end for at least 2 years so there is some urgency to get the ball rolling. We are close and a foundry deal (likely with SilOrix) should be close. It is not the end of things if it is not done by the ASM. If it is not done by then Dr. Lebby will be pressed hard for what is holding up the contract. We don't know who the inital transceiver partner will be and hopefully that will come soon as well.

We all are sick of looking at the low stock price. We know it is HEAVILY shorted. Smart shorts should be buying small amounts to cover every time the price is run down so they can lower their risk with the prospect of commercialization so close. Perhaps some are and less sophisticated shorts are taking their place. It all comes down to where you get your information about whether shorting is a good idea or not. People take more risk when they see a lot of other people doing the same. This will end badly for them sooner or later because they are trapped with the magnitude of the short position and the days it will take to get out. I believe there is a good chance several deals will be announced in the next few months fairly close together that will put a squeeze in place that will be very, very hard to exit.

Lightwave's technology is groundbreaking stuff. There are likely many partners not yet named that are far along. There will be deals, many of them in the next six months.

From Fintel 4/28/23
LWLG
Short interest 20,405,568
Short iinterest ratio 47.59 days to cover
Short interest % of float 17.99%

At any time in the next few weeks an announcement of a deal will be very exciting. Because the retail owners of stock have held for much of the past year despite the yoyo attempts by short sellers to run the price down to trigger sells and partially covering later in the day or the next day.. They have succeeeded in pushing the price down but at the price of losing control once positive commercialization news comes out. Forty seven days to cover is like a lifetime when the price is rapidly rising because buys will come in from new and current investors waiting for the moment of confirmation that revenue is on the way.

For short sellers who have been looking at their paper profit it will be gone very fast as they try and compete with buys from people waiting to pounce on shares with the news everyone is waiting for. This does not even take into account momentum traders who track rapidly rising stocks and quickly buy to catch the momentum. Buying pressure will be huge and there will be a trading halt and the price will come back much higher than when it started. There will be some shorts who even try to hold the price down by initially selling and they will only get buried in a larger hole. It will be made worse if owners of stock call back their shares and there is none to borrow. This will be a perfect storm.

I would not be surprised if Dr. Lebby has deals signed close together as that would catch everyone off guard. After all he has been frustrated by the short selling for a long tome. This would shock the market, good for stockholders, very bad for short sellers. Forty seven days to cover could be awful if you are still short the stock. when this happens. Forty seven days stuck in a nightmare.

Proto, to your point #4 " the cost of product is almost all in development costs to date, the ongoing cost to goods will be next to nothing...".

This really is a magic formula for earnings in the future. This and the value of patents on manufacture and packaging of polymer juiced chips is going to be eye popping. One has no further to look than to the Pharmaceutical Industry where the cost and time to develop a drug is huge and there are fails along the way before the final drug structure is found. It must be safe and do no significant harm. The drug is protected by patents so there is no competition. It has a long runway and often captures new uses once it is introduced.

There are several analogies here. We have the drug to fix the internet.

Scammed? Third party confirmations (Polariton and SilOrix) using the LWLG technology validates the tech works. One can only estimate when deals get finalized. Adjustments in the polymer, packaging improvements and testing volumes of finished product after these changes likely added to some time to deals. Testing production runs to the satisfaction of partners had to happen. Finally at the PIC conference Dr. Lebby gave it an all clear sign and finally said deals will be finalized. I have been here just under two years and he has never been so definitive in his believing we are ready.

People who have listened to Kerrisdale about all the deficiencies in the technology have been scammed. Shorts who rely on their algorithms to try and continue to short when the first deal is announced will get fleeced.

Things are heating up on this board today due to a lower share price, a lack of any success with commercialization (no deal yet), and increasing negative posts by shorts and traders. Tensions will rise as we approach the ASM especially if there is no deal in the week leading up to the ASM. Watching the share price go down makes me anxious. Despite that, I have been adding shares and lowering my basis. I deal with anxiety by taking a step back and I look at facts.

1) Lightwave's polymer works extremely well and when added to a slot modulator far surpasses current materials.
2) PDK's are complete and previous problems have been solved at the foundry level.
3) At the PIC conference Dr. Lebby told everyone that stabilty is excellent and volume production works in smaller foundries and they are able to move to commercialization based on current results (SilOrix confirmed they are to that point and they have been strongly linked to LWLG).
4)The sticking point for larger foundries has been needing to move on from using gold and LWLG has had success with aluminum electrodes strongly suggesting this will be the last major step to moving to CMOS based manufacture in large foundries. This suggests it is a matter of time. Based on the needs of the industry this technology is "must have".
5) Dr. Lebby stated that manufacturing issues are resolved and he will work 100% on finalizing deals along with chosen closer, Atikem Hailemariam.This signals to me that we are getting close.
6) The stock price is down beacuse of market factors. Almost all pre-revenue companies have been shorted aggressively in this historic interest raising environment. Higher interest rates and LWLG working under NDAs has given shorts the cover they need to aggressively short the stock.
7) Apart from the shorts messages of no revenue and deals in the past so none in the future they have no reasons to keep saying Lightwave's technology doesn't work. The credibility of the obviously negative posters has been proven false over the past year regarding poling, stability, functional PDK's and time frames to solve these issues. These problems have been solved.
8)Lightwave's polymers can work with most if not all semiconductor materials and offer the low cost answer to advancing functionality of chips to help push our country and allies into a stronger position going forward solidifying NATO countries lead. This has importance for military and security leadership. I am sure our government is aware of our company. Future CHIPS Act help with mass commercialization?
9) The polymers can be adjusted and advanced to make them more functioinal regarding speed and power reduction and the wavelengths can be tuned based on the needs of the application. This adds to the wide eventual use of the polymers. Remember the large patent moat and the fact there is no competitor on the horizon that can offer a ploymer that is close to what LWLG has.
10)The Chromosol patent portfolio acquisition seems to add to the liklihood of ubiquity.

People shorting will likely increase the closer we get to the ASM and if no deal is announced. This is reality. I see this as desperation based on where we are regarding the readiness to commercialize with technological problems solved and because it has worked for them over the past year. The reality is they are stuck and will watch the share price rocket up when deals are announced. Based on the specs I can see that customers would want Lightwave's products ASAP. Deals will be done in due time. I don't want Dr. Lebby to cave to any deal partners may want leading up to the ASM. I am sure they are aware of Lightwave's possible need to come to the ASM with a deal. I am sure Dr. Lebby would like this but I want him to make deals that stick to rules that are clear to future customers because in the end it makes future deals, easier to accomplish. In the mean time I look at the facts to alleviate my anxiety. The storm will pass.

I agree Pitcook that once Lightwave's technology is being widely used in the market there will be less of a need for being at so many conferences. Until the technology is widely used, being at conferences is still very important.

It seems to me that Dr. Lebby is trying to reach as many people in the industry as he can, especially since so many obstacles and new advances have been accomplished this year. Through technical conferences people learn about the advancements and can go back to their offices and labs to discuss the impact Lightwave's technology might have on their present and future products. Companies send their knowledge representatives to such conferences to come back with new information which benefits their decision on adapting new technology. This is often discussed at the Board level in companies. Many big deals to partner need the approval of the Board of Directors to finalize it. Letting the world know that LWLG has everything ready to commercialize is a very important message to get out as directly as possible.

Equally important are investment conferences. Having two of them coming may be a harbringer of the future regarding deals. Getting the message out that commercialization is just getting going allows new investors to look under the hood so to speak. We want analyst coverage. This is how you get your foot in the door.

Dr. Lebby has the tech side covered for now with John Zyskind helping foundries get rolling. For him to say he is 100 prercent focused on getting deals completed should get your heart going.

Re:NLM as a competitor
"I hope they will join this race one day"

Yes, as long as they pay for use of LWLG's patents.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/276306/global-apple-iphone-sales-since-fiscal-year-2007/
Here is an example of a fairly recent highly innovative product that we are all familiar with and how sales progressed after its introduction.
I phone sales 2007 1.39 mil
2008 11.63 mil
2009 20.73 mil
2010 39.99 mil
2011 72.29 mil
2012 125.05 mil
2013 150.26 mil
2014 169.22 mil
2015 239.22 mil
2016 211.88 mil
2017 216.76 mil
2018 217.72 mil

This is of course an example of a wonderfully innovative product priced in a premium way yet growing rapidly despite legacy competitors. Given some limitations on manufacturing the first several years they still had breakthrough growth until sales stabilized after the 2015 peak. Remember the lines waiting for the release of new versions?
Competitors adapted some of the i phone features and had robust sales as well. From 2008 until the peak in 2015 global sales of smart phones (including i phones ) grew 10X. I phone sales alone grew 20X in that time frame. Competitors had to adapt by accepting lower margins to sell their phones and offering cheaper less functional products for people in less affluent countries. Competitors made sales by offering cheap prices so phone plans could offer them as incentives to switch or upgrade to their plans. Competitors survived but never came close to doing as well as Apple. Apple did this despite being much more expensive than other phones.

What do you think the growth rate would have been if the price of i phones was comparable to competitors, they had multiple foundries churning out chips to power devices, the speed was 3X faster than any other phone and they used less power so batteries lasted longer. It would be very hard to compete with the product. This is how a company can quickly take over a market.

LWLG has the advantage of having the only polymer that can meet the needs of the market, and the patent moat in polymer production and manufacture of polymer devices to protect their position in the market. They can easily manufacture all of the polymer that is needed on demand. With the advantage of cost, speed, power savings, and flexibility of integration into devices with a potential roadmap to expand into other segments of the market you have the formula for ubiquitous.

I was also thinking why now hiring a closer. I would suspect a framework for a deal has been in place for some time. I doubt they would be working with foundries for over 2 years without one. Both sides need to know what each generally expects without looking at all the details. Now that the technical problems are solved, at least for the smaller flexible foundries, they can meet somewhere within range of each sides expectations. Lebby has been clear for quite a while that they are going to seek the appropriate value for commercialization. The wrangling could well be around final details on the value of technology transfer now that the value is more apparent with problems solved and good results. Small numbers matter financially especially for the foundries as they look at their margin requirements.

Dr. Lebby hired someone he has worked with in the past and knows they can work together. There are likely many entities to negotiate with and there will be a good deal of back and forth which will take time. Dr. Lebby has an extender as well as a knowledeable consultatant on the details. This hire will help expedite deal making. I would assume he knows a great deal about how contracts should be worded to prevent future problems.

This hire also signals to all the foundries that have final PDK's that now it is deal time. They know other foundries will be involved. I don't think they want to last in line to get the ball rolling especially if they have been planning to start manufacturing soon after the contract.

Don't freak out, yet.
We didn't hear about a commercialization update or DEAL with the conference. Remember this is a technological conference. Michael Lebby is here to talk about progress with the polymer platform. He is also the co-chair. He has all kinds responsibilities to keep things moving in a timely and effective direction for the whole conference. Yes, of course he has help with that. If the conference doesn't run smoothly, people remember that and who was in charge. This is, after all, supposed to fun for the attendees.

If I was in his position, I would not release commercialization plans with any new clarity before or during the conference. It would be a distraction from his duties as co-chair. It would appear self serving as well. He would perhaps be inundated with questions from the 700 attendees he would have to beg off answering. It would put people off.

Don't freak out, yet. There is still about a month for commercialization updates before the ASM.

Ted, You are working hard today to present many technological and manufacturing hurdles for LWLG to overcome before commercialization can begin. Dr. Lebby will be presenting tomorrow so some of your uncertainties may go away for shareholders and prospective investors and perhaps even you.

If there are such manufacturing and high cost "problems" that need to be resolved, why would many foundries want to waste time working with LWLG especially since there has been repeated progress reports from the company on problems solved and samples testing out well.

Regarding the high costs you suggest could be a hurdle, costs would likely be less as perkinamine allows foundries to forgo a driver in the modulator and allows less costly materials to be used. Michael Lebby has said perkinamine is compatible with all current materials used as an add on in the manufacturing process.

Thanks for your update jeunke22. Stability of polymers has not often been mentioned as much as faster, lower power and small size. People need to appreciate how important lower power consumption is especially since large data centers like AWS, Microsoft and Google have set goals to be carbon neutral by 2025. To get there they are buying Power Purchase Agreements to guarantee access to long term availability of renewable energy. Renewables are not available everywhere due to location and climate. They have to reduce usage. Polymers consume less energy which is good. They produce less heat as a result which likely aids stability. Less heat emitted requires less cooling and again less power consumed. When you think about it, our polymers get greener by the day.