Replies to post #8256 on Spectra7 Microsystems Inc (SEV)

[StillNotDone]

This should help provide some profile for Spectra7, but it's too bad that it is not as accurate as it could have been. Please correct me if I am wrong on any of the following:

• The compatibility issue – saying AEC is superior to ACC and that at DesignCon that the compatibility was only shown for 5 of 7 vendor’s? (I thought the word coming out of PlugFest was that S7 was the only product that worked across all Vendors’ products). This 5 out of 7 sounds very specific. Does anyone have more information on the 2 that were not compatible?
• Spectra7 has always claimed to be “plug and play” vs. AEC that needs to be configured. This article seems to be saying the opposite (that AECs perform better in compatibility between different systems – and pointing specifically to the “gearbox” feature of AEC’s). I believe this is one of the reasons that breakout cables are used (hooking up an 800G switch to two 400G ports on other parts of the AI cluster). Any of the hyperscalers are going to have the same degree of control over the architecture of their system as Tencent (as mentioned by the author). Perhaps in Enterprise applications there may be more “configuration” challenges in trying to retrofit legacy components in systems, but this seems like a red herring to me as the volume opportunity is in new AI deployments.
• Even the claims of Spectra7 cable lengths (7M) is wrong for 800G – that length would only be for lower data speeds. The copies of the Spectra7 PowerPoint slides that he included in his article contradict this claim.
• Estimates of market opportunity appear to be very conservative (I guess he has to be in publishing this kind of piece), and the indicated traction of AEC also appears to be overstated.
• In addition to the patent portfolio, he does not recognize the difficulty competitors face in developing and refining analogue chips (which is a big obstacle/delay).
• Despite published Nvidia technical documentation that mentions all over the place that ACC is one of their cabling solutions, he does not mention them. There are also similar mentions in Arista documentation.
• Molex and Amphenol may not have active ACC sku’s on their website, but Spectra7 has press releases on their website announcing Volex, ACES and Zhaolong 800G offerings. He does not mention them.