Here is the clearest picture of reality...below is a post of mine on Reddit yesterday in response to someone asking about large orders, what it takes to get there, and potential hurdles.
DOA - I'm in love with Lebby again so instead of a dog bag next week, he's getting roses.
The next 3 months should be the most exciting in the company's history. We should see another commercial deal, we should see evidence of the "money shot" 4x200G PIC, and we should be provided an update on the reliability of the packaged devices. They are beyond 5,000 hours at this point with success. Last but not least...it sounds like this May's shareholders meeting is going to have record attendance and there's absolutely nothing better than speaking to the management and Board of Directors face to face. So, if anyone is still disappointed by May or has questions...buy a plane ticket.
One of my favorite quotes from Lebby recently. Read it 10 times. "several commercial foundries are implementing our PIC designs for multi-channel polymer modulator engines, including 4 channel solutions for 800G".
Reddit Post:
"The SOM shown at the May 2023 shareholder meeting basically predicts initial sampling of EO polymer based transceivers in 2024. I do not take that 7,900 figure literally. I'd expect around 5-10,000 units for sampling per partner. This "sampling" round includes traffic trials in end-user systems and testing of reliability "plugged in". After that, volume purchases would be expected and that's when the it ramps per the SOM growth for 2025+.
The rate of growth and quantity purchased depends on the customers. All industry projections show that this market potential is massive and continually being updated to be larger than anticipated.
As for LWLG's own ability to scale to meet these demands....it depends on the foundries.
As long as LWLG has its device designs optimized for the target application, and the material optimized for the device design...it doesn't matter if LWLG is ordering 1 wafer with 1,000 chips or 1,000 wafers for 1 million chips. It all will work the same.
We know LWLG has internal ability to produce consistent material. They are experts in that.
The remaining questions are optimized device design and the ability of foundries to be consistent. There's many factors at play there such as waveguide quality, surface roughness, material layer thickness/uniformity, and dicing quality (if the foundry is doing the dicing).
We know with the Chromosol ALD acquisition that the device design had to be tweaked to optimize that new process. 2023 was all about receiving new data on packaged devices with the new ALD. Per the Optica PECC conference, the packaged devices were at 4,300 hours of excellent thermal and photo-stability.
LWLG ended 2022 by telling its shareholders that 2023 will have a focus on BEOL engineering and automating high-volume poling processes. These would be the primary constraints to scaling into the millions. There are two poling scenarios and one is that its completed at the foundry and the other is that its completed in-house.
So, with all that said, everything appears to be going to plan to have EO polymer modulator based transceivers ready in 2024. Large orders would follow the initial sampling which will be announced once the 4x200G PIC chips are ready...IMO.
IMO there's a few different scenarios how it could play out, but the bottom line is that we need to see evidence that the 4x200G PIC is ready. I do also think there's a possibility an 8x100G PIC could be revealed. While significant for EO polymers, I am personally not as excited for an 8x100G as I am for 4x200G."
