Mark L's TFLN insights, and Walter's sharing
At the OFC Mark L presented info heavily focused on the demand side regarding TFLN from some 15+ large companies, including the five most prominent hyperscalers in the world and Nvidia, along with insights on Cisco Systems, Ciena, Arista, Juniper, Marvell, and others.
He also discussed eight TFLN suppliers throughout the world, and that number has increased since then.
His presentation pointed out that there is much work to be done with TFLN - scalability/manufacturing has not been forthcoming, so that ability is still suspect - and that InP is still the predominant solution and will be for a while. He said that the bigger opportunity is NOT with 200G/lane, but is with 400G/lane.
To be sure, the jury is out on whether TFLN will deliver but the INDUSTRY seems to be very familiar with this material, which is why Mark knows this much information.
IN CONTRAST, the INDUSTRY has provided little to no information or insights about perkamine other than the widely known concern re reliability of polymers in general. He has nearly ZERO insights from any of the companies named and we just saw in the last Optica meeting that Andy B seems to have very little knowledge or enthusiasm for polymers as compared with TFLN.
It is telling that there is really only Lightwave and NLM (others?) supplying polymers for the industry. While perkamine is proprietary it is totally illogical that a market with any promise of taking off has so little participation. There is a relatively high number of Chinese suppliers in the TFLN market that offers the promise of penetration into the attractive western markets -- are there any Chinese polymer suppliers? If there is a market for polymers like perkamine, there will be other players. That's how it works. That's what happened with TFLN. Transceivers are currently in a boom period, I understand. There is plenty of research going on around the world so if there were real expectations of perkamine taking off there should have been announcements of new polymer players at OFC 2024. But almost nobody is talking about it and it seems to me that's because nobody in the industry sees much potential.
AimlessBlade I can tell you that I believe Mark is a straight shooter. He just doesn't see any reason to get excited about what Lightwave is doing.
He has gotten the feedback from the biggest companies in the world and I believe that if they had given him something positive about Lightwave he would be more generous. I think his position is that there is no way in the world the whole industry is in the dark about something great going on at Lightwave. No way. Put that together with the ongoing carrot dangling farces and I refuse to give Lightwave the benefit of the doubt. This company stinks imo. See you at year end. So far my predictions are being met quite closely.
TO WALTER:
First Walter, your sharing is the right thing to do. Thanks. If I were a newcomer and saw your list I would be excited by it.
As an informed investor who has done plenty of research there are only a couple of points that are specific enough to make me take notice. Particularly re the technology status, which does sound good (though plenty is not being addressed still)
The puzzling thing is if they revealed anything that was meaningful and has yet to be presented publicly that would be an SEC violation, So I have to wonder if a couple of the items were 'gleaned' as opposed to specifically stated.
In any case the tells are clear to me about this company: Regardless of the true current status, it dangles carrots year after year in order to keep their doors open. As such, their timeliness have no credibility and I'm going with the obvious tells we have seen so far this year.
IMO the last 3 ASMs were are grossly misleading as were the last 2 annual shareholders.
That's my evidence and no long has come close to refuting it.
The best I can give Dr Lebby is that he feels that carrot dangling is ok and is justified by the potential success they may have someday. I refuse to be dangled by this company.
