I must admit I undervalued its role as well, whilst it is taking place right under my nose.
IMEC is a power broker in R&D for the entire semi conductor industry. IMEC serves as a neutral R&D institute where coordination takes place on the development of future disruptive technologies, materials and applications for the big global chip companies.
Lightwave’s involvement with IMEC which dates back from years ago means IMEC has been involved in paving the way to ubiquitous polymer e/o material introduction.
From hybridisation ( coordination between vendors) to pluggable transceivers, from integration and optimisation into a electronics data center environment across the complete semi conductor value chain (development, testing and manufacturing) . From ASML ( EUV equipment, equipment vendors) to integration into CMOS manufacturing / foundry ( Global Foundries, TSMC, Intel, Samsung) to new testing methods. I think this may well be coming as a complete surprise to us as long term investors. Something we completely under estimated, but which in hindsight would make all the sense in the world. Let’s hope that this is the moment we have been anticipating for such a long time.