Member Info for Nanonano

Always bear in mind these forecasts are often grossly inaccurate. Predictions a few years back were that QD's would encompass 50% of the display market by the early 2020's. The reality was much lower, about 12% I think.

Naturally, they can sometimes underestimate demand, which would be nice, but I will temper my expectations until I see the contracts inked, and the cash rolling in.

Let's hope it's not £10.42p for the whole six weeks work!

What is going to count when it comes to the company value though is bottom line economics. Hoped for business is just that, not a reality.

The Samsung litigation fell far short of even low expectations, so understandably investors are cross.

Sensors look like a growth area, but may take a while to bring in any decent income.

Anyone care to take a guess at what Nanoco may be bringing in 12 months from now?

Plenty of possibilities, but often competing technologies for business. Perhaps less of, or no alternative in this instance, will have to wait and see.

The amount of material required in a sensor is minuscule, and lead is far less regulated than cadmium anyway, so unlikely to be an issue.

There is a drive for better performing materials, lead sulphide seems to be the best at present- Quantum Science claim to have a lead free alternative, but the performance is below that of lead sulphide.

Nanoco's other material sets in development appear to be aiming at better performance. I recall Jonathan Steckel claiming that they expect next generation infrared sensors to exceed InGaAs in performance, although I expect that might well be in a very narrow band of frequencies.

Be it sensor or display material, the end product is quantum dots, just tuned for different parts of the light spectrum, and different chemical elements accordingly.

Nanoco have muddied the waters a bit by referring to the infrared QD's as nano materials, which they are, rather than simply infrared QD's

Perhaps they're anxious about lead sulphide tainting their green credentials. Lead may not be classified as toxic as cadmium, but it's still a restricted substance.

Sadly the website's swear filter is a bit too keen, to the extent that s-p-a-r-s-e gets asterisked out.

so i’ve been looking at the spec of the apple vision pro. obviously details are still a bit sp**** with it still being pre-production, but it does look like there are up to 11 camera/sensors that are likely to be operating in the infrared band. seven are on the outside including the central lidar device, then you have four inside dealing with eye sensing and iris recognition.

SiGe sensors have nothing to do with Nanoco or quantum dots. They’re just a competing technology in the SWIR sector, although they cannot extend as far into the SWIR bandwidth as QD based sensors. This limits their application to some extent.

The big yellow bubble of circa $2.1bn for consumer devices would be the area of the growth, which at present is zero.

There are two main technologies I'm aware of that can extend silicone sensors beyond the NIR spectrum cost effectively- SiGe and QD-CMOS. The former has some advantages for applications where heat is an issue, so that may be more popular for use in cars.

How much will Nanoco win, impossible to predict, so I'll say anywhere from 0-100% and such forward-looking analysis is often wildly inaccurate e.g. back around 2015/16 it was predicted about 50% of the display market would incorporate QD's by around 2020, when the reality was very much lower and remains so in 2023.

Trying my patience. Already stated the Apple Vision was late, hence delay in commercial orders. All assuming the tech is in it, which is likely IMO.

2. Who are the suppliers for the remaining 10% display market after Hansol/Samsung?

Nanging/NNcrsytal, Nanosys.

3. Why do you think Nanoco has been unable to get any share of that 10%?

Cadmium cheaper, slightly improved performance, probably unlikely to be noticed by consumer though. Possible nobbling tactics by Samsung. Legislation may eventually swing in Nanoco's favour, that may only come when certain patents expire though.

Should be interesting to see what happens in China. The Korean display industry is on the backfoot IMO, in a similar position to the Japanese industry 15-20 years back, when LCD started to come to the fore. Korean's were seen as the porr relation when looking for a quality set, now they're seen as the premium players and Chinese OEM's are cleaning up in the low and mid-range sector, they have almost exclusive control of LCD production and are now aiming at premium market segments. Korean OEM's seem rattled, hence the increased focus on OLED and high end tech where the Chinese are still in catch-up mode.

Thing is no matter how much cost they drive out of OLED, it's not without its issues, and they just can't squirt out the quantity that they can with LCD.

lCD still gives and excellent display, yet cheap to make with mature manufacturing processes. For most consumers it's more than adequate, slap in some QD's, job done.

"4. Is anyone currently selling commercial sensors and making profit? "

Selling yes. Making a profit, not sure, possibly but it's a tiny business at present as no one is making them in industrial quantities. e.g. https://www.swirvisionsystems.com/cqd-sensor-technology/

Most of the SWIR and sensitive NIR is Ingaas based for military and high-end industrial use.

STMicro are expected to be the game changer here.

Not sure why s-q-u-i-n-t-i-n-g was asterisked out in my post.

total speculation on my part, which may be completely wrong, but it fits to me.

apple's vision pro (we can finally name it now it's been released) has seen multiple delays, and probably those delays were related to other aspects of the design, i expect the displays were a big one- the silicone oled is very tricky to make to the extent only one company can currently provide the required spec. totally outside of nanoco or their partners control. also there have reportedly been many internal struggles within apple over the release of the device, where the design department felt things needed to advance to the level of a pair of normal glasses before release, whereas supply wanted something out there presumably so some software and apps can mature.

i strongly believe the vision will use qd tech, for one you have very accurate eye tracking with iris recognition, and although this can be done without qd's, i don't think it can be done as well as the vision does it, and then there is the issue of power use and eye safety for extended use, compared with say ba smartphone where it may only be used momentarily.

i believe eye tracking and iris recognition is likely to operate in the nir band, and it has to be eye safe for extended operation and very accurate and use the minimum amount of power possible.

i'm sure many here are aware that the nir is danagerous for the eye if the intensity is too high, and that danger increases as the exposure is extended. this is because the eye cannot regulate the intensity of the light as it would with visible spectra, e.g. by s*****ing. in addition, the sensors need to react quickly as the vision has a very fast refresh rate of 12ms, or about 83hz which has to include all the processing etc. plus the mask is enclosed which means you need artificial infra red light from led's.

as qd's can increase sensitivity around sixfold at a designated band over conventional silicon, seems like a perfect fit to me.

there are four of these sensors inside the vision unit.

swir could be used on external lidar, which would help speed capture up and allow the lidar to penetrate through things which may otherwise compromise it e.g. someone smoking or vaping etc.

also additional sensors to read hands, face etc. on the unit which will likely incorporate infrared, probably in nir band, these may or may not require qd's.

Hansol- Nanoco tech ripped off.

Nanosys- Cadmium based, plus question marks over their production methods. Claimed sales volume of materials doesn't align with sales of Quantum dot display unless they've been shipping to Samsung under the radar., bearin in mind they had over 90% of QD display market until very recent times and overall market for QD display still remains relatively small.

QD's like all nano materials are still a very new technology and industry is conservative. They will change when required to do so, e.g. nothing else will do the job. With regards to extending CMOS into the infra red spectrum, it's found a potentially rich seam with little alternative in the consumer space, at a time when a requirement for such items should prove to be exponential in growth.

Referring to shareholders as ‘plebs’ is an unlikely way to win support.

SWIR has lots of uses. I wouldn't have expected Jonathan Steckel to have spilled the beans on any sensors potentially earmarked for an AR device.

However nothing is a dead cert, it just seems a good fit to me. The AR set could potentially feature a few qd enhanced sensors rather than just one or two.

Have to wait and see.

Looks extremely likely to me, bearing in mind LIDAR tends to use infrared, and silicone sensors aren't very efficient even in NIR bands let alone SWIR, assuming that's going to be used too. The best non-QD sensors from STMicro are around 25% QE in the lower end of NIR band, with qd's they can increase that to about 60% QE, so that would be a good fit for making the sensors more efficient, faster in operation and extend to a greater range- this has all been mentioned in company updates.

Https://www.macworld.com/article/1939266/wwdc-2023-minute-by-minute-keynote-preview.html