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As we are moving ahead with technology development to an inflection point it is time to replace the MZ group as they are not fulfilling what a real investor relations department can do. It is best to do it before revenues come in so the new head of investor relations can have in depth discussions on communications over the past several years, identify what management is looking for and then advising on changes to the company's approach that should be considered. Developing a strong level of communication with Michael Lebby and other senior management is necessary to prepare to ramp up communication coming out of the department taking into account current NDAs and identifying how to communicate within those bounds (after all there has got to be room for improvement).
MZ group was a cheap option but only a superficial one. They lack deep knowledge of the company and this prevents answering questions appropriately. Michael Lebby has been handling too much of that directly and someone needs to be the point person to improve consistency. A real investors relations department will be able to handle the expected increase in inquiries that will come when meaningful news begins to come out.
A really good investor relations department will show these strengths:
Help the company establish goals in communication. Improve communication with shareholders, prospective shareholders, institutional investors and analysts. Improving communication centers on articulating corporate strategy in the clearest words possible. Answering questions within guidelines but understanding what else needs to be said to to promote the company's agenda. All of these are both educational events and opportunities to promote the company as well.
This includes helping to manage dialogue in earnings reports, releases, corporate presentations at conferences and discussion of financing and debt levels.
A good investor relations department runs interference to prevent the wrong person speaking (think Marcelli). Consistency of messaging is important.
IR should advise the company on speaking opportunities with a good audience and seeking those out so management doesn't make less than useful choices.
IR will gather intelligence and alert management to looming problems and miscommunication to clarify investors concerns. IR will also search out disinformation sources and help management counter such.
IR should advise Dr. Lebby on using words to clearly state what the company wants people to understand with the messaging ie help limit ambiguous language.
IR could be reaching out to analysts with personal updates on corporate progress and be the point person to institutional investors.. This is the sales function of the department.
The IR department is the eyes and ears of the company and keeps management up to date on market conditions and target market news. This might come from dialogue with current and prospective investors and their concerns. Helping management to understand shareholder concerns should be paramount and this happens when IR has enough time to spend answering questions that come to the department. This of course frees up management to try and fill in gaps that MZ group has left them.
Good messaging requires updates and proper messaging on the company website. Educating investors with an understanding of the technology and its versatility is important to encourage new investors to try and learn more. Doing so with easy to understand information and then guidance to more sophisticated resources of information would be helpful.
A good IR department helps management avoid communication mishaps and missed opportunities. They should get smart and move on from MZ Group to an experienced lead in Investor Relations.
GP, this is a real crazy idea you present as fact and coming from a guy who for years has had outlandish statements about reasons for the company to be unable to integrate polymers into pics.
From GP: "EOP being organic means each modulator on the wafer has slightly different characteristics. This isn’t going to work for large orders in a timely manner. They have to bin out the good chips and that takes too much time. Not to mention all of the other processes eating up the clock."
So organic means unpredictable variability? You mean like the variability that occurs in growing organic pumpkins? LWLG is not into making produce. Organic chemistry is noted for utilizing carbon in the chemical structure produced. It also allows for purity of product if the procedure of manufacture is careful and does not allow contamination. LWLG can produce a pure batch of perkinamine when needed. It is tested for purity before it is released. The polymer is added, much like many other chemicals, during the foundry's manufacturing process according to the PDK the machinery is using. The reliability of the chips that come off the equipment depends on finding the exact way to apply and when to apply the chemical in the process. Once successful it can be repeated reliably.
Problems in reliability of chips coming off foundry equipment is due to an inconsistent or poorly timed process or a material integrated that may be not pure enough. Single crystal TFLN is very difficult to manufacture in a pure state and that is why only one company from China has been the main supply. Some occasional variability with the material (lack of purity) likely has led to some lack of the reliability in manufacturing that has been seen with it.
We have validation from the joint release from LWLG and AMF that they have produced modulators using AMF's standard 200mm foundry equipment resulting in modulators testing below 1 v and 200Gbs PAM4. All the nonsense that both you and Ted have spewed over the last several years that Lightwave's polymers can't be run off PDKs, can't be poled, can't be scaled to volume, can't be stable enough for use has been proven wrong and now confirmed by the joint release from LWLG and AMF. Once proven on 200mm foundry equipment, similar equipment can be successfully used by other LWLG partners who the company has been working for the past few years. The fact that anonymous posters make unfounded claims is ludicrous without either first hand knowledge or second hand reliable knowledge with the companies involved who state otherwise.
I get it Steven, management in past years saw potential in polymers and perhaps even thought a partner would want to take an active role in further development. That didn't happen for a number of reasons, risk with polymers as they failed in the past, the available modulator options were acceptable up to a couple years ago as more concerns were expressed by the escalating power use more recently, the questionable financial status of LWLG and its cash position, competitive options more recognizable and being used by much bigger companies and the fact there was no pressing need for big ramps for newer, faster modulators as data was not growing as fast as the last couple years.
The company had a lot to prove. They had to improve their polymers through their research and patent acquisitions, come up with designs and show integration of polymers in a desirable package. Recognizing the move for co-packaging and packing servers evermore closer together smaller size suddenly mattered. Focus on developing polymers that would use less power is growing fast. Prove, with partners, that high volume manufacturing is possible. And importantly, prove long term stability to dispel doubts about stability. Then along came AI and data flow is doubling every few months with predictions it will keep expanding. Proof of designs for future faster, lower power and low cost modulators now is paramount. Things have worked out for the company's development and it is happening now at a time when the industry needs something new.
I think you still hold shares because you see a lot of what I just summarized even though the frustration of no real news on commercialization as yet is the cloud over the share price.
Ted I will have to have a talk with your kindergarten teacher.
This is a nice description of the mechanics of the price manipulation that is going on with LWLG and other small cap stocks not widely understood by the market as a whole. High volume trading adds additional downward pressure with blitzkrieg high volume sells frightening retail holders who might sell or triggering existing stop losses. A company like LWLG who remains in development mode is very vulnerable as usually investors avoid non revenue companies especially in high interest markets. Add in the purposeful disinformation campaign going on here and elsewhere and it is a recipe for further stagnation of the share price.
Knowledge is the only way to combat all of the above. It is necessary to follow the development closely ignoring the Flack that the short's avatars throw at us regarding failed timelines, doomed financials and incompetent management. It has taken a long time to develop polymers to the point that they are being integrated into pics with successful high volume manufacturing. It has taken about 20 years. So what else is new. TFLN and indium phosphide have been in development for 25 years without products being available until very recently and still not available for high volume manufacturing. They both have continued difficulties in that regard.
LWLG is sampling modulators with a number of companies. One company has managed to get to this point compared to numerous companies
for both TFLN and InP struggling openly over the years to commercialize an available resource. How many minds did it take for them to figure things out and yet there remain serious question marks form both. LWLG has been moving along their development timeline from 2021 nicely, perhaps not fast enough for shareholders but that is because of the low share price and the purposeful manipulation to strangle the company financially from possible future financing but it won't happen because announced product and hopefully some partners later this year will overcome the stranglehold on the price that exists now. Short sellers still owe the market 20 million shares. Trying to cover short positions will be difficult when most of the knowledgeable shareholders hold onto their shares recognizing the early stage of the rising value of the company.
Yes, it would be huge. It would accelerate things greatly as the short haul market for AI is large. But remember Nvidia also is addressing that market with Infiniband products. Infiniband compliant modulators and associated products are made by other companies like Nokia as well as Nvidia.. Could Nvidia or Nokia be working on 800G short haul modulators/transceivers? I can't help believing that Perkinamine will fit in there somewhere and with someone.
We should not forget networking equipment uses. At some point, if not currently, that will be taken up by a partner using LWLG polymers. We have to remember these things do take a lot of time to unfold. In the end, we have to start somewhere and the first products will have to be modulators for data centers to send data to its users.
From my prior post regarding Intel's optical co-packaged module for short reach:
To jump to those speed level ( referring to 200GB per lane for 800G and 1.6T ) I would imagine a new material would be needed. Could it be Perkinamine. I can't see where else they can accomplish that without it. Transceivers within the data center will likely be with a partner using the material and developing the device. The bottom line is Intel competitor or partner.
Competitor or partner? Intel as a competitor would likely need to use indium phosphide as a material to get there. Intel as a partner would likely be using Perkinamine. The advantage of the latter would be the ability to go beyond 1.6T where InP doesn't appear able to do.
This is an important announcement in that Intel has found success in its effort to utilize heterogenous integration with a co-packaged optical compute interconnect chiplet that exhibits lower power, high bandwidth with distances up to 100 meters. This would be used inside a data center to connect servers and would target AI uses.. The energy consumption of the module is about 5 pj/bit. LWLG has shown energy consumption anywhere from 1-5 pj/bit.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/intel-demonstrates-first-fully-integrated-150000595.html
This is surprisingly good specifications for a co-packed device to replace traditional pluggable transceivers inside a data center. The operational distance is not very good but Intel believes they can get it to go a longer reach for a more competitive product.
From the release I found this very interesting.
"These PICs were packaged in pluggable transceiver modules, deployed in large data center networks at major hyperscale cloud service providers for 100, 200, and 400 Gbps applications. Next generation, 200G/lane PICs to support emerging 800 Gbps and 1.6 Tbps applications are under development."
To jump to those speed level I would imagine a new material would be needed. Could it be Perkinamine. I can't see where else they can accomplish that without it. Transceivers within the data center will likely be with a partner using the material and developing the device. The bottom line is Intel competitor or partner.
The talk on this board by the short seller minions about no progress is just plain silly. There has been a lot of progress this past year getting to the point of demonstrating modulators off wafers from a 200mm foundry which has been the goal. And that is one foundry introduced while others, having been involved with LWLG much longer than AMF, are not yet disclosing where they are and what they are doing. I wonder about the modulators used in transceivers within the data center being developed by a partner, likely one we would recognize. We don't have details and that is not friendly to the share price. The modulator array could be part of a holdup on a contract but I believe that has been in the works for quite a while.
Secrecy on developing new technology is the norm. The public is the last ones to hear about the details of where a company is at in its development of new technology. Secrecy is even more important when the technology is a paradigm shift from what is currently in place. Because LWLG is a small company with no current products that bring in recurring revenue, it is under the microscope of where they are or where they are not. If you believe that evolution is inevitable as development moves forward, photonics is the next logical step for chip manufacturers.
That quote came from the Feb 28, 2024 release of the 2023 10-K. It suggests possible 800G products for the upcoming upgrades that AI seems to be demanding as it is being built out. The statement is forward looking while you are always backward looking.
That is right red. A good Tech CEO plans to have a company's technology ready for the upcoming upgrades when they will be needed as that is the best time to join the competition with the new products.
I would like to point out some interesting statements from the 2023 10-K regarding the applicability of polymers for inclusion in optics within and between data centers.
"Datacenters have grown to enormous sizes with hundreds of thousands and even millions of servers in a single datacenter. The number of so-called "hyperscale” datacenters are expected to continue to increase in number. Due to their size, a single "datacenter” may consist of multiple large warehouse-size buildings on a campus or even several locations distributed around a metropolitan area. Data centers are confronted with the problem of moving vast amounts of data not only around a single data center building, but also between buildings in distributed data center architecture. Links within a single datacenter building may be shorter than 500 meters, though some will require optics capable of 2 km. Between datacenter buildings, there is an increasing need for high performance interconnects over 10km in reach.
Our modulators are suitable for single-mode fiber optic links. We believe that our single mode modulator solutions will be competitive at 500m to 10km link distance lengths, with inherent advantages for 800Gbps applications."
A similar statement in the 2022 10-K filed a little over a year ago had a similar statement about 800G being the possible entry point for polymers in transceivers for the 500mm to 10km distances that connect the millions of servers that increasingly will be needed to talk to each other to improve the potential of high performance computing.
We know there is is likely more going on in development than starting to commercialize the 10km transceiver market. There is a very competitive battle going on between Nvidia and its Infiniband line of products that serve the 500mm to 10km market and the incumbent Ethernet manufacturers who are still trying to come up with a new standard that would better support AI. They have promised the new standard would be out in the third quarter of this year. Currently, Infiniband is ahead thanks to a strong company like Nvidia taking the lead with definitive decision making.
In a competitive market, a new material that can advance technology better than other existing technologies should get some strong consideration. The question is, is Michael Lebby understating where they are with possible partners with this or is it just a possibility and it is a wait and see game with the industry?
This is one of the reasons why we are invested in LWLG at this time.
Dan Ives, managing director at Wedbush, estimated that for every $1 spent on an Nvidia GPU, there could be $10 to $12 in additional spending across related software, IT services and infrastructure tech.
"The ripple impact that starts with the golden Nvidia chips is now a tidal wave of spending hitting the rest of the tech world for the coming years," Ives said.
When it becomes clear that LWLG will be a participant, and likely an important one, there will be no looking back.
You don't become a 3 billion dollar company without being aware of other technologies that affect the uptake of your own technology. NVDA knows about all the upcoming technologies that can facilitate accelerating AI. They are looking at any technology that can aid faster communication between GPUs. NVDA is expanding into software to aid developers in building out AI programs faster, so will they will require more GPU computing. NVDA is expanding into networking because this is an enabler to their core technology; better GPUs will be needed if transmission of data allows it and facilitates it.
The industry is talking about heterogenicity as the next step as silicon is tapped out. New materials are needed to integrate into chips to make them faster. Heterogenicity also means getting devices closer together in novel ways to aid communication between devices to become faster. Smaller modulators will be needed and LWLG has that solution with its slot modulator.
Wake up yobuck and use your head to think about whether NVDA knows about polymers. Do you think they boycotted the major optical conferences this year? Of course they have their higher level engineers going to technical conferences. You are looking at the share price alone to make your predictions. Try using your head instead of your eyes.
Open AI's GPT-4, released in March 2023, represented a significant leap forward in AI language models and was highly anticipated by many in the field. Once out, there was great interest and innumerable people trying it out. With its release came projections on uptake, and industries that could make use of it. Rather quickly, other chatbots were announced by other companies, staying relatively quiet previously as they developed, hoping to get a piece of the pie. We know about the AI frenzy that has been increasing since Open AI's release and with other chatbot software and other software supporting AI coming out it has seemed like things will never be the same.
Data centers have been buying up Nvidia's GPUs like crazy and the share price has followed. Nvidia's sales in the first quarter was up 400% from one year ago and the share price even more than that as projections on future needs continue to be raised. Nvidia has that very nice model of doing the designs and delegating manufacturing chips to TSMC. This how Nvidia can feed the beast so to speak. AMD is also participating but not to the same degree.
Data centers are preparing for a run on data and doing so aggressively. The first step is to beef up servers to handle the computations necessary to allow AI software to go back and forth between data center and the user. You don't put all that money into computing without looking at what is needed to transmit the data. They want to prevent bottlenecks as that is how you can lose customers. Upgrades to transceivers will become increasing necessary as data centers try and stay ahead of demand. They want the best transceivers to handle increasing amounts of data and will go with the best available whenever possible. When LWLG gets linked to this need for data transmission in an AI world, it too will face an intense tailwind. This will only happen with news of finished product and hopefully the Tier-1 customers Michael Lebby has talked about. Multiple foundries working with LWLG would aid the supply concerns that data centers have as there is a lot on the line for their business in this environment.
Arguing about what is in the 10K is a waste of time if you are looking for an up to date status of what the company is doing currently. The 2024 release of the 2023 10K at the end of February gets picked apart by people like Ted as if it is the gospel for the present and future as if it will have new, previously not released information. The SEC expects the company to give a general description about business matters. The 10K summarizes most of the things that have been officially announced in 2023 and in prior years. It offers similar information released to the public via conferences. It offers no meaningful conclusions as to what is going on in 2024 with technology development. It doesn't even highlight releases from 2024 as it is only meant to be an annual report of 2023 so it is backwards looking. It talks about technology that is being worked on in a less than specific manner. This is not a surprise as the company does not want to disclose the status of where they are in getting closer to new commercialization information until they are ready to do so. Competition drives some of the silence. The company has to walk a tightrope with NDAs until there is mutual agreement about the release of new information to the public. The SEC doesn't expect the company to release joint information from companies under an NDA about how far their joint work has gone as long as it has not been yet released publicly. Companies have some discretion as to what they say about details they are not yet ready to discuss unless it is a material financial event.
The 10K is a must read for new investors and for current shareholders who are not watching things closely. Unfortunately, the 10K can lead to confusing interpretations from people who might interpret what is being not said, or said in general terms as purposeful deceit. That is of course Ted's forte. There is more progress that has occurred since 2023 that has not as yet been disclosed. Shareholders either believe that and hold or they can succumb to misinformation that spreads on this board.
A looming problem for thin film lithium niobate semiconductors?
I did a search on Google patents for thin film lithium niobate and its integration into semiconductors. Thousands of patents exist. I skimmed through the first 400 of patents listed. Most are categorized by filing date and the majority filed 2020 -2023. After filing, the publication date usually is several months later. A considerable number have patent granted dates. This shows there is active attempts to lock down patents for TFLN semiconductors and their manufacture. The vast majority are filed by Chinese entities. There is a lot of interest in getting TFLN chips accepted but who would be on the hook if TFLN gets a large share of the market? Once the value of a technology is wide spread then come patent claims. Would it be end users like in 5G or would it be the foundries? Would there have to be standards established? That didn't solve much in 5G if standard essential patents are self declared as they were in 5G. Since most patents appear of Chinese origin, will the claims be adjudicated in Chinese courts? American companies don't do well there. This has all the makings of a future cluster f**k. Is there anything one can do about this? Don't forget that the vast majority of single crystal LN thin films come from one Chinese company, NANOLN.
Not all of the TFLN patents would preclude manufacture without a license but how is a company going to know? A better technology would be Lightwave's as previously discussed here. It is a fact that LWLG has locked down a large amount of the patents and all of them relating to perkinamine for manufacturing polymer pics so a selling point for end users very well could be less of a possibility of patent violations. How much is the patent risks with TFLN. If I was a company I would not want to find out.
I agree dude, a big issue with polymer pics is the lack of awareness of how far along the company is and the value of the technology to move data faster and at much lower power. That is clearly what is needed for upcoming upgrades to data center transceivers. It is getting close to when the large data centers will be moving ahead with orders for initial installations. Over the last couple months it has been "show me time" and the only technological leader has been LWLG. Orders are inevitable as upgrading is a must for data centers with the need for faster and reliable data flow. A Tier one contract will provide instantaneous credibility and will shock many people. I think that will be a turning point and that is when more news starts to come out.
Right now LWLG is the best AI stock nobody has heard about. That will change in the coming months.
Vanguard and BlackRock are the largest holders of shares but the majority are in funds. I believe there are single retail owners that are holding 7 digit shares. Some of the early investors likely know, I do not, and whoever does know will not speak as to who on this board.
Nrdc I have no quarrel at all with the need to make deals. I believe Dr. Lebby will make himself available whenever needed to advance a deal in development. It is a rare opportunity to participate in a large investor conference that attracts a lot of industry participation showcasing small companies who are developing their business. It allows one on one interaction as well. Roth specializes in covering small caps. This is how companies, their products and potential gets known. I think it is time well spent as the stock price will not rise fast enough without some analyst backing.
Nrdc you said, "LWLG has been to many Roths and a slew of other “institutional” and other investor conferences, and the stock price has only gone down."
Focusing on the value of Lightwave's technology from prior years at Roth to where it is at this year at the Roth conference, participants will see that the share price is lower but the value proposition of the company is significantly higher.
Over the PAST YEAR alone the company has proven many things that were only possibilities in past years. They have proven the ability to produce a state of the art modulator running at 200G and PAM 4 which can now be used to produce a 4 lane 800G transceiver and those modulators can be run off a PDK on 200mm foundry equipment. They have one announced foundry who requested to go public with their ability to offer this to the industry and LWLG has other foundries capable as well who prefer to remain working under the NDA. They have shown for the first time anywhere, foundry modulators running just under 1V with very low optical loss. They have been showing photo stability and thermal stability that continues to to run past industry minimums and thus demonstrating how the low temperature ALD appears to be helping to solve any doubts about stability. They are working on the modulator array chip for 800 G and it has been promised to be ready in 2024.
The Holy Grail the industry is looking for is the 4 lane 800G transceiver that can be delivered in high volume on 200mm foundry equipment with proof of stability and low optical loss. It must offer strong Sustainability features with low power consumption, design flexibility with a small footprint and and be cost effective. These are the features that one looks for to aid in developing Heterogenous Integration. The large companies waiting for the solution and the various technologies that can offer this package have seen only LWLG have the ability to offer this beginning in the second half of 2024.
The stock price does not reflect these attributes at present. An investment conference like the Roth gives the company the ability to talk directly to the investment industry about what polymers can do for the technology space especially based on the past year's accomplishments. Changing the public market's perception of polymers comes from conferences like this and that is how the true value of its technology can be accounted for. I suspect Roth will likely be one of the first, if not the first to have analyst coverage with a speculative buy rating sometime in 2024, highlighting the potential of the technology. Speculative buy ratings are often used for unprofitable or pre revenue companies that have strong potential for success.
TP and GP love to predict LWLG will fail because they have been working on perfecting the structures of their polymers and perfecting their inclusion into photonic integrated circuits in the lab and the last few years in multiple foundries but it has taken 20 years. No big deals they say has come from all the work. They predict failure based on the time it has taken in the past and the time it is still taking to get perkinamine fueled pics into the market. Looking at the challengers to polymers one should be able to see that they have taken a long road to being a contender as a material for advanced chips.
Indium phosphide has been researched by many over a period of about 25 years to get it ready as a unique material that can be used in photonic pics.
Barium titanate was first synthesized in the 1940s and has been researched as a material candidate for chips for over 20 years.
TFLN has been researched for not as long as the other two but it is based on decades of using lithium niobate in various electronic applications including photonic chips. It wasn't until the advent of nanofabrication techniques to allow making thin films of LN to make TFLN possible for further study but even now there are concerns about supply as the majority of supply of single crystal lithium niobate thin films come from a company in China and there remain questions about stability. Thin films have to be manufactured at an atomic level bringing in complexity for other companies to do so in a single crystal form.
Graphene has been advertised as the next super star material since as early as 2004. There has been a frenzy of study from many companies and research centers over the years as it can transmit electrons super fast but switching, turning the hyped up electrons on and off, is a problem being worked on. In January 2024 the first successful semiconductor chip was made at Georgia Tech. More development time spanning years is expected from this point to get it ready for commercializing so these chip materials won't be commercialized in the near future.
Stock traders and the shorts' messengers will populate this board complaining every day it isn't happening fast enough. Producing a breakthrough material that allows advancements from silicon that is not just incremental but very substantial is very difficult, filled with numerous attempts at modification and then trying to solve high volume manufacturing. We are so close in the development phase when one considers the tasks that have been accomplished. All of this from one company doing it alone compared to all the researchers and companies who have been working on the other above materials for many years. It takes time to get things right enough to satisfy customers and that part is being actively worked on by Lightwave currently. It is called customer engagement. Patient shareholders will be rewarded.
I believe you are right LR. Ted has been on penny stock boards for years, bragging about his acumen in identifying what he says are good stocks and bad stocks he follows in an effort to convince others to follow his advice and then profit on his buys or sells. He has been here for over 2 years with a trader's agenda or as a short's paid avatar, or both, tearing the company down with his "Ted Facts" that are often taking things Michael Lebby says out of context and enlarging them into a big problem that won't be solved for a long time or some conspiracy purposely planned and acted out by Michael Lebby. He ignores it when Dr. Lebby reassures that problems Ted harps on are no longer an issue. He is here to spread fear and doubt about the technology and the company's future.
We have to expect there will be people like Ted here for the foreseeable future as the people who hope to influence investor sentiment to improve their trades will still be an issue on investor message boards when LWLG becomes a profitable company on the rise.
If you are a small company how do you make a brand new technology attractive to huge technology companies that manufacture and consume computer chips in order to move large amounts of data faster? Let's look at how LWLG is doing it.
First, you must concentrate on what you can control. You have to make your technology work, but not just work, but work better than anything else out there. Problems inherent in doing so must be solved. The company has solved many problems associated with polymers ie 1)continually improving perkinamine structures to operate faster with lower power consumption.
2) finding the most desirable way to incorporate polymers into photonic chips using foundry partners and doing so with high volume manufacturing. The polymer slot method had the most advantages allowing for faster, lower power and especially much smaller chip sizes which would attractive to the industry for variability of design purposes
3)solve the issue of reliable poling but doing so as part of high volume manufacturing. Done
4)making the polymer based photonic chips very stable with very low optical loss and debunking the long held belief that polymers were not stable enough for use. Discovering how to use low temp atomic layer deposition to hermetically seal photonic chips in the manufacturing phase to improve these characteristics. Done
5)improve testing of speed in transmission collaborating with testing device companies to produce devices that can measure faster speeds to show the industry how fast you can go
6)to be truly competitive you must be cost effective with a lower price of modulators than current incumbent or other new technologies by getting rid of the costly driver chip. In addition, using ALD to hermetically seal the pic, gold box packaging is no longer needed and using gold is quite costly. So ALD not only makes the pic more stable but gets rid of costly gold box packaging. Wait, with LWLG being faster and allowing 200G X 4 per lane pics, 800G is possible while incumbent technology would use 8 lane, or twice as many modulators for 800 G transceivers driving up the cost greatly. Done
7)Test every step of the way to prove consistency of specifications culminating to testing modulators from high volume manufacturing for long term durability and consistency in samples coming from manufacturing before sending samples to customers. Ongoing
8)update foundry PDKs on the expected 200mm foundry equipment as needed to meet pics with desired characteristics customers prefer. Samples coming off 200mm foundry equipment means the PDK for that foundry is operational
9)demonstrate third party use of polymers in functioning and stable devices especially for next generation speeds to show upgrades are possible. Done
10)continue to demonstrate technological progress with conferences that target both industry participants and possible future investors so that polymers in chip production becomes more accepted. Highlighting polymers ease of integration in most of the current 200mm foundry equipment as well as future uses beyond datacom and telecom. Comparing your superior specifications against competitive technologies regarding faster transmission speed, lower power usage, smaller modulator footprint, high temperature stability and high photo stability with low optical loss and potential for lower cost.
11)Building out adequate lab space to manufacture polymers and test them and to test new designs. Hire employees for filling technological and financial roles as needed. Employee count has increased significantly over the past year
12)Manage finances by planning for future spending into a lengthy 18 month period and maintaining a debt free balance sheet. The updated business plan since 2021 has been using a capitalization light method of manufacturing chips using foundries current equipment in partnering. Done
13) Have some proof of ability to offer next generation polymers when upgrades to faster transceivers are needed. LWLG has offered some proof of this with their newest perkinamine offering.
14)attentive customer engagement through the processes of development and and to the point of negotiations while maintaining certain business and technological progress confidential for competitive reasons.
LWLG has made great progress in all of these areas to be at the point of current contract negotiations with a proven superior technology to incumbent technologies and interest from Tier ones
These are many of the accomplishments over the past few years. The remaining open question is when the 200G X4 array modulator chip for 800G is available as it is the preferred chip package for transceiver makers for 800G. It is possible for there to be interim sales if transceiver manufactures choose to use 4 modulators (not in a one chip array) in transceivers using traditional packaging techniques. LWLG has been working with transceiver partners for a long time but we don't know if there is interest for this so it is an uncertainty for the market to deal .with. It could happen nonetheless
The things that are NOT under company control ie
THE POSITIVE1) artificial intelligence has accelerated the need for faster modulation to allow the huge amount of data needed to be transmitted so much so that 800G transceivers are being requested by customers sooner than expected
2)After looking at comparisons with other technologies, more customer interest and engagement has occurred
3)Management has said there are several deals at advanced levels of negotiation but it has been taken a lot of time due to partner and customer expectations that the company is trying work through with them
4) Increasing financial, political and public opinion pressure is on data centers due to rapidly increasing use of power to run data centers as data requirements grow and the electric grid has started to reach its limits in certain areas of high consumption. This goes hand in hand with concerns over Climate Change.
5)The cost of cooling data centers as they run more servers close together is rising leading to concerns regarding the cost of cooling using power to run cooling systems and the huge water waste from water being used in cooling systems. The implications on climate change is being discussed more and more
6)There are concerns regarding too many data centers as building them is rapidly increasing and there is not enough physical space to build more in some areas. So existing data centers will have to become as efficient as possible using upgraded equipment
7) Competitive new technologies so far are not showing as good a set of required specifications as LWLG has demonstrated.
The things that are NOT under the company's control ie
THE NEGATIVE1) The timing of signed contracts as the company is very motivated however the customer will have the final say as to when based on factors like timing of readiness to deploy, satisfaction regarding enough production runs and testing has been done to prove consistency and trying to get favorable terms and language in the contract
2)NDAs while protecting the viability of technology success and customer interests the secrecy allows for the spread of misinformation in the slowness of completing contracts
3)How quickly will the technology be taken up after deals are signed as ramping new technology can be slow and cautious or faster based on customer confidence and need of the customer
4)Stock market conditions at present with high interest rates that do not favor small companies putting pressure on share price
5)Investor sentiment due to the lengthy time needed to have developed and proven the technology with some exhaustion waiting for some retail investors
6) The extremely high short count approaching 18-19%. This has led to using techniques such as high volume trading of small amounts of shares to move the price lower and triggering stop losses or sales from shareholders not as committed to holding in the current environment as well as shorting more to pressure the stock price lower and covering when a lower price is met
7)Perhaps varying signals of readiness from partners or customers to sign agreements leading to alteration in the narrative the company may give publicly resulting in building negative sentiment about competency
8)The spread of misinformation that is easy to do as the company remains limited by the slowness of developing and bringing out new technology and the NDAs that limit certain disclosures.
Despite all of the success the company has had integrating very useful polymers into high volume manufacturing in multiple foundries and building out their ability to meet large orders, misinformation is still spread about the truthfulness of company information and viability financially of the company
9) Over the past few years there has been more volatility in small cap stocks leading up to and during the Russell Reconstitution periods. This likely has been fueled by the high interest rate environment handing small cap stocks, especially non revenue ones, more volatility in share prices that in general recover after the Russell Rebalancing is finished.
10)There is a lack of knowledge about what the company has as a technological solution for transporting data through the internet. The technology is hard to understand unless you take the time to learn. There are no analysts covering the company formally which hampers wider awareness. This won't happen until there are revenue projections from management or a large contract with a Tier one company for modulators.
These factors around what the company has accomplished over the past few years and their being close to real news on commercialization does not offer a good justification for the current share price. Current uncertainties are keeping the price down along with misinformation spread in various venues. The uncertainty of timing with the 4X200g array modulator chip has led to some doubt about how long it will take which does not help the current share price. The company has said it will be available in 2024 which is open to interpretation. based on one's knowledge and sentiment. The company has no control over the share price except by actually making meaningful deals. The closer that time comes the more volatility we may see as shorts and traders try to effect a lower share price that as we see, does not reflect current finances or readiness to commercialize. Short sellers have a large problem to face with a very, very long "days to cover" problem that will make covering when real news comes quite difficult.
I believe the company will meet goals as they have continued to make technological progress even as some people doubt their ability to do so..
Ted I had said that 250 million was the minimum market cap for ENTRY into the Russell 2000, not 300 million. That doesn't mean dropping below 250 million in market cap would lead to deletion from the index but at just above 300 mil it was getting close to a point of consideration. I do suspect market manipulation and aggressive shorting driving some retail sales as well, leading to the rapid drop in share price.
Today is the Russell "lock down day" where additions and deletions are considered final. Russell looks at factors beyond market cap to to have a more complete analysis about growth potential. I agree with you that LWLG will remain in the index as there are many companies who have slipped down to well below 250 million so they would be in greater risk of deletion. I believe shorts are hoping the aggressive drop in price will lead to some retail sales and possibly some trimming of LWLG shares as part of the reconstitution and allow for some covering of their short position at a low price. We are likely going to see volatility continue over the next 2-3 weeks until the rebalancing is no longer a day to day uncertainty. People who believe in the technology will buy at these prices.
Meaningful news changes everything.
LR arguing with Ted is like shadow boxing, you can wear yourself out trying to win a point but in the end nothing changes with him.
LR, you are absolutely right about this:
"All one has to know is that if a producer is sending out end products to customers it is because there is a PDK that is being used in a foundry to make the modulators on wafers for the producer.
I don’t need to or have to explain anything else."
Customers are not wanting to see your progress from samples unless it is a finished, functional product from standard 200 mm equipment that would be used to make the future sales of the product.
This is a case of 1+1=2. It seems in Ted's world 1+1=0 until he says otherwise.
Very interesting video that emphasizes what American baseball player Satchel Paige said "Don't look back, something might be gaining on you". Michael Lebby keeps talking about the necessity to maintain NDAs with partners and not disclose details as yet about their joint development. Competition is fierce in the technology space. The reality is that China wants to run past the U.S. technologically and they have been working to decouple from relying on U.S. based semiconductor companies. They really have to do that as the U.S. has been limiting Chinese companies from accessing advanced chips. China can get them anyway from third parties in the same manner as how money gets "laundered". That however is not a long term solution.
China has been putting a great deal of resources into photonics and working with TFLN in particular. If I search for information on TFLN, most of the scholarly articles seem to be from China. It seems they are putting a lot of emphasis on this material for improving speed and lowering power consumption in photonic chips. TFLN has a lot of promise but there is not enough of a supply to handle a large scale worldwide rollout in the next couple years. Most of the supply of Lithium Niobate thin films come from a company in China called Jinan Jingzheng Electronics Co., also known as NANOLN. Supply is limited as manufacturing is difficult and costly. I think China is happy to encourage worldwide research on the use of this material as it furthers the knowledge base, encourages plans to try and commercialize but right know it comes down to who has control of the limited supply of the basic material to manufacture the TFLN wafers that would be
needed.
The tensions between the U.S. around many things especially access to advanced technology would suggest that TFLN is likely not something that the West can count on for use as an important basic material for advanced photonic chips in the foreseeable future. China could limit the supply of single crystal LN thin films at any time to preserve their edge. The advantages that LWLG polymers have over TFLN apart from better all round specs are going to be COST and GUARANTEED SUPPLY from a U.S. company and companies can have it NOW as it has been fully proven in samples.
Things are not so dire as the shorts try to manipulate the stock price. We have to remember that many of the shares index funds loaned out to shorts that they have sold will have to be returned to index funds if they are forced to sell a percentage of shares in the fund. Shorts would have to obtain (likely buy) more shares to fulfill any share call back by the funds before the funds can sell those shares. Volatility up and down could easily occur in the coming weeks if that process plays out.
For what it is worth, this Monday is the Russell "Lock Down Day" where additions and deletions are made final. The only changes after that are possible changes to the percent of shares of a company in the index based on changes of market cap. Our Market cap on the Russell "Rank Day" (April 30) was 458 mil. Rank Day is when Russell lists preliminary additions and deletions. Our market has been pushed down to around 310 mil at present. Based on this, it is quite possible LWLG was not on the initial deletion list but with a lower cap number, indexes could sell some shares after the rebalancing based on market cap. This would lead to a further drop in share price initially as indexes are forced to sell a certain percent of shares based on market cap and that is likely when short sellers will try to cover leading to a rise in price. They will not get enough to cover as much as they want as there will be other buyers at low prices. The share price manipulation seems coordinated, and aggressive as it is timed around the Russell rebalancing. It should not be surprising that there would be an aggressive short attack here as time is running out on shorts before a commercialization agreement comes and it could come out at any time.
It seems like we are in an alternative universe as the company has solved numerous technological problems to be able to add polymers to PICs to give the industry what it is looking for for next generation modulators and doing so with the ability now to do high volume manufacturing on standard CMOS foundry equipment.
I received a nice chart from Xena that shows the intensity of the take down of the share price starting a day before the ASM and through the day of the ASM. The volume spikes on these two days were the largest of this calendar year. The closing price of LWLG on 5/21 was 3.86. Over the next two days it went down to 3.49 the day of the ASM and then ended at 3.19 the day after on volume of 1.54 mil and 1.46mil respectively. That is 4X what the volume was on average in the preceding months. Of course the price has continued to decline on high volume take down days to today's 2.76. I am not surprised that it stopped there as I had a 1,000 share buy sitting at 2.75 and this has happened many times in the last couple months for me. Shorts want you to not believe Michael Lebby when he says commercialization is underway and deals are coming.
It seems to be shock and awe as there is strong forces wanting the share price lower at the time of the Russell rebalancing reviews. Short sellers know that some people have a price at which they feel an obligation to sell when the price goes down to a lower level. No negative news came from the ASM to justify this but the ASM gave us no definitive positive guidance to prevent it. I believe shorts are stuck as there would be not enough volume to cover when definitive positive news comes out. They would love to see forced selling from a deletion from the Russell 2000 in order to get volume covering. The Russell reviews are not only based on price as they look at other factors to grade a company's value and /or growth potential. The best thing shareholders can do is hold tight, buy if you can especially if you believe in the company's progress and potential.
I can't include Xena's nice chart that she PM'ed to me as I couldn't find a way to transfer it. It would be nice if she can get out of the penalty box so she could offer charts on trading as before as she has a long history with the company and uses that to counter misinformation that gets spread here.
The 4X200G PIC chip "is progress" so it is probably somewhere in the manufacturing phase at present and we know that can take months. Where in the cycle? Probably not at the beginning because when we heard that from Dr. Lebby it was already known for some amount of time. From experience we don't find out things in real time nor should we expect that.
They have had a lot of time to be engaged with one or more transceiver partners so I wonder about if they would announce a transceiver connecting 4 of the 200G modulators in a typical package solution well before the 4X200G chip comes out. If there is significant demand, a traditional packaged set of modulators would help support the rollout.
30 Million is the minimum for the Russell microcap. It is 250 million for the Russell 2000.
Based on the timing of our share price decline, it matches the timeframe of the Russell reconstitution research. I have no doubt the company will commercialize but there has been the rumors spread that we won't by the people who want the share price lower. I would think the Russell folks know better than to go on rumors. I believe we will be OK as long as the share price does not get to low 2s. The posters representing the shorts have been predicting the price going to 2 for quite a while, wishful thinking I believe. If we were deleted from the index, it would be wild short term, rapid down, followed by recovery. How much recovery? It will be up to Michael Lebby to produce more than just promises. We really need news of substance.
Since January 1, the share price has spent the vast majority of time hovering in the 4s. If there was a brief breach to the upper 3s it was short lived. Most of us saw a share price of 4 as the bottom. The last time the share price was 4 was on May 14. The very good news about technological progress coming out of the major conferences failed to give a real boost to the share price as selling pressure had continued, led by orchestrated, coordinated sells by short sellers which has weighed on shareholder sentiment to encourage further selling. Here we are in the upper 2s which seems ludicrous to knowledgeable longs.
One factor I have been mulling over is the fact that the Russell 2000 rebalance will be final June 28. The average market cap in the Russell 2000 is 4.8 Billion (which is blown higher by the rapid rise of SMCI to 45 Billion). The median market cap is more important and is 960 million. Our market cap is around 340 million. The minimum to be in the index is around 250 million but a stock can be replaced if it is somewhat above that if there are questions about commercializing or if there are liquidity problems affecting trading. Russell slowly releases preliminary changes on 5/24, 5/31, 6/7, 6/14, 6/21 and the final date setting the index, 6/28.
If I was a short, looking to Russell deletions to include LWLG as a possible endgame to successfully exit my short position would be the best scenario. Institutions that follow the index would be selling large amounts of shares at low prices from which shorts could cover. I would imagine that they have hoped to drive the stock price down even lower than what it is now but enough buying has come in to offset that. Kudos to those shareholders that have been buying. Getting LWLG booted from the index would be like winning the lottery for the short sellers.
Technically we are not out of the woods yet but our market cap isn't that close to the minimum to get into the index. There are 3 more dates of announced changes before the index is finalized. I believe institutions get some heads up on changes to begin adjusting their index selling or buying as needed. What I am hoping for is getting past the next few weeks where there still could be selling pressure prior to the Russell finalization. After that we might begin to see some real short covering and a rise in the stock price.
We always can learn things from history.
In 2019 Mellanox, an Israeli company, was acquired by NVDA for what became a 7 billion dollar transaction. NVDA was one of several customers of Mellanox who supplied networking adapters, switches, routers and cabling that utilized InfiniBand technology which at the time was starting to grow in significance to the incumbent and dominant Ethernet technologies. NVDA battled Intel for the acquisition. It was becoming evident that InfiniBand technology would support the increasing use of High Performance Computing which could better aggregate the computing power of multiple computers and perform many operations in less time. The Data Center industry was moving to numerous smaller servers that were interconnected for supporting more complex computations. Ethernet technology offered a bottleneck compared to InfiniBand which allowed for better interconnections between servers resulting in higher bandwidth, lower latency and thus faster transmission.
Mellanox was valued around 3 billion as a company selling InfiniBand products to NVDA, Intel and other companies at the time of the acquisition but NVDA and Intel saw the likely rapid growth that was coming as HPC was being utilized more and more in data centers but NVDA appeared to benefit the most as its GPUs critically needed InfiniBand for optical performance and to accelerate their use. NVDA didn't want Intel to get the technology as there was a bidding war.
NVDA's Jensen Huang saw what was needed to really allow GPUs to become critical in data centers and that was to allow computing and data to run faster and allow numerous chips to talk to each other and speed computations. The faster InfiniBand could be taken up in data centers the more GPUs would be needed for even faster computing which would be necessary in applications like AI. NVDA has control of a technology that was starting to grow into the market as the demand for it compared to incumbent technology (Ethernet) was appearing to broaden. InfiniBand is a complementary technology to NVDAs main income source, GPUs.
Lesson learned is that if a technology is appearing to be needed for an industry as big as the data center market for it to move to the next area of growth and efficiency, it will be utilized instead of the incumbent technologies. It won't happen until it becomes clear other competing technologies cannot do what it does as well. Once proven in real world applications to do what it is advertised to do, it becomes an acquisition target based on future growth and likely dominance especially if it enhances the growth of the acquirer's products.
It is still early for LWLG as it still has to get its modulators into data centers and prove its worth in overcoming the bottleneck that is going to grow in transmission from the data centers as HPC and GPUs powering it demands faster transmission out of the data centers. Once that becomes clear there will be multiple acquirers considering LWLG as a target. The companies who have the most to gain will be the most aggressive in bidding when that happens.
It is a rebuttal by Dr. Lebby on the share price and doubts spread from folks such as yourself. He is telling people he is negotiating with the big companies and 2024 will see deals.
The value proposition of Lightwave's polymers added to pics gets clearer all the time with consistent stability measures growing longer and longer and achieving volume scale manufacturing of of 200G PAM 4 modulators running at or under 1V. There is not other materials that can be added in heterogenous integration that comes close to this and is ready for deployment in the coming upgrade cycles. We have one announced foundry capable of supplying large volumes of these modulators. What about the other foundries who have been working with LWLG for the last 2-3 years?
Just because we have not heard as yet doesn't mean other foundries are not yet ready. The ability to introduce polymers into the manufacturing process on 200mm foundry equipment can occur with a foundry's current equipment so in theory it is not overly complicated if it can be accomplished with a relatively smaller foundry on similar equipment working on it for a year with the help of our smart LWLG team of engineers. Larger foundries may or may not behind AMF. Several larger foundries more than likely have completed PDKs and packaging options are in the works for the 200G PAM 4 modulator chips either in the form of the modulator array chip or through standard packaging with a transceiver partner. Perhaps the first transceiver announced will be with standard post foundry packaging but only if there is a customer that wants it.
In addition, large foundries are likely tied to large customers who have expectations on manufacturing cycles run and subsequent testing which we know takes time. LWLG is not driving the timing as much as customers and their expectations are driving timing of orders. Foundries tied to a large customer are likely wanting approval from that large customer to announce involvement because the customer is satisfied and made a commitment to order. Competition among transceiver manufacturers, among foundries and among customers wanting to begin deploying is likely there and can lead to wanting to remain under NDAs until closer to deployment. How much so I cannot say but I believe it plays a role. We must keep in mind that moving to using polymers in chips is a completely new thing that could have a large effect on what technology is used in the coming years. Companies in competition can gain 12-18 months ahead of competition by not disclosing a commitment to a new technology until closer to deployment.
I can only imagine, as I have done in this post, some of the complex, integrating factors that effect disclosure of details as we march along to commercialization like an army patrol hidden in the trees.
The share price has been falling since the ASM where Dr. Lebby said the company is still on track but hedged on guidance regarding the modular array chip for 800G transceivers saying it was "in progress". I don't know what that really means other than it will come and it still can come soon even if someone else wants to interpret it as not coming in the near future. He also said tier-1s want more data. The longer we go from the December 4 guidance on deals in the short term the more anxiety there is for some in the shareholder base. All of this has allowed traders and shorts to use high frequency trading, shorting and covering to drive the price down leading to some shareholders to sell. It will be interesting to see what the short count is. Shareholder fatigue holding for many years may behind some of the selling especially in the weakness of the share price of late. Some shareholders may have sold hoping to get back in with news. Michael Lebby says we are commercializing but there is no news released about specifics. No wonder short sellers are complacent in the control of the share price they have had.
I believe anyone shorting LWLG is playing a dangerous game. Complacency by the shorts over the past 18 months as the stock price drifted lower and lower with shorting more and more is showing itself. The short interest ratio (days to cover) is the Damocles sword hanging over the head of the shorts meaning they have control and paper profits but it can be gone in a few days time with commercialization news of substance. With such news, new buyers come in, former shareholders try and buy back in and current shareholders hold recognizing the significance of the news and now short sellers are faced with strong competition for shares and the chance of a short squeeze. The days to cover has been been in the 30s and recently the 40s. It is calculated on average daily volume but much of the volume is buys and sells amongst the shorts and market makers so that would suggest that the days to cover is even higher and that is what makes it so dangerous for shorts who aren't covering at these low prices.. I am not selling a single share and have added over the past month.
Yes proto, people need to be reminded of this:
"Only two years ago, many market analysist covering data centers and more specifically pluggable optical transceivers, were forecasting huge growth in 400Gbps as the main vehicle for client side hyperscaler traffic. Data centers were looking at 4 channel 100G lanes (for an aggregate of 400Gbps) and 8 channel 50G lanes (also for an aggregate of 400Gbps) as solutions to support 400Gbps traffic. Today, this has changed substantially: market forecasts for 400G are flat if not declining, and today’s focus is on 800G using 200G lanes, with 400G and 800G lanes expected soon."
Artificial Intelligence threw a curve to manufacturers of photonic pics as well as other parts of the technology space. Manufacturing schedules were humming along with plans for next generation upgrades for modulators and suddenly plans for 400G modulators had to be bypassed as not being useful enough for the accelerating need for faster modulators as the result of AI. LWLG was facing strong competition over a year ago as it was clear that the industry could provide 400G modulators in 4 lanes using incumbent technology. It is true that LWLG had modulators that used lower power but LWLG was not ready yet with modulators that met testing requirements and it was facing residual skepticism that polymers were reliable enough, more proof was needed.
Here we are now and Lightwave's modulators could be placed in transceivers now for a 4 lane 800G solution, but transceiver companies want a modular array to get to 800G which will speed up transceiver manufacturing and likely aid reliability. Manufacturers that were banking on emerging technologies such as TFLN and BTO ran out of time as those technologies cannot offer 4 lane 800G transceivers. Modulators using InP are behind but not as much as TFLN and BTO but they are not there yet with speed to offer 4 lanes for a 800G transceiver.
So we are witnessing a real horserace here to a finish line that requires a 4 lane solution to 800G. LWLG is in the lead by far. The other next generation materials have not reached that point as yet. LWLG will be facing competition that will offer 8 lanes for a 800G transceiver. Those will sell to some extent but it will become obvious to most people that LWLG offerings will be reliable enough and much lower power and the majority of sales will go to them.. The company hasn't proven they have the manufacturing part in place to really speed ahead in sales. We have heard Michael Lebby say frequently, they cannot offer details on sales for competitive reasons. We have one announced foundry partner with others to follow this year. They are further ahead with other foundries than what has already been disclosed.
It takes a lot of time to get to the point Lightwave has done to have tested and proven 200G modulators with the characteristics the market wants. With wafer manufacturing and testing timelines between 4 and 6 months, new competing technologies are far behind. They have cycles of adjusting and testing before they perhaps will be ready with each cycle taking many months. LWLG is clearly in the lead by far in this race and that is why more companies are interested and awaiting a final transceiver product.