This isn’t necessarily a response to you, MarcoPolo, but is relevant to people questioning the past.
Over the last few days I’ve rewatched the 2017, 2018, 2019 shareholders meeting presentations and then the 2020 ECOC presentation. The 2020 SHM video isn’t online.
It was a wild exercise and hindsight gives you the most clarity.
2017 through 2020 was all about getting the initial prototypes created and characterized all while continually improving the material. Lebby even discusses an issue with the 50G prototype that needed re-engineered. Back then Lebby was unsure 100G (70Ghz) modulators were even going to happen. He was optimistic, but was open about it being a challenge. We just learned last week they’re hitting 150Ghz!
In the 2020 presentation, Lebby noted that standalone modulators are not the future and they need to miniaturize and get into multi-channel PIC chips. Here we are today on the precipice of an integrated 4x200G PIC chip.
Revenue was never promised. Timelines were never provided. There were never any awkward moments in any Q&A. It was always about data, data, data.
Since May 2022, 2024 was stated to be the year of customer acceptance and ramp.
2023 was stated to be the year of finalizing the back-end processing/packaging and the creation of a complete reliability dataset. I’d bet in December we get an update letter that provides some context on the progress here.
Today, polymers are front and center on the technology roadmap and widely discussed at all industry conferences. If you attend these conferences, you will witness companies acknowledging working with LWLG. The need for this specific technology couldn’t be more clear.
If you’re expecting a HUGE deal to be announced tomorrow or in the near future, you will be very disappointed. We’ve known for months now that the rollout starts relatively small in 2024 and quickly ramps in 2025 and beyond.
The run to $20 was premature and tainted the psyche of many. I have no doubts we’ll get there again and I personally believe it’ll happen before widespread commercialization occurs.
There’s only just a few select technology platforms that can enable 200G per lane optics that’s widely recognized as being critical for the future. EO polymers are the only platform that offer natural scalability. EO polymers are the only platform that is proprietary technology and there is only one way to invest in this technology.
Our time is coming. If one can’t patiently wait, they should consider moving on completely.
