Ilika Share Discussion Threads

[supernumerary] 30/4/2016 15:08

Incidentally, there are a couple of brief articles on Electron beam vapour deposition, which is the technique I believe Ilika uses, here:





Hard going for the non-specialist!

[supernumerary] 30/4/2016 14:57

I think just stacking them would result in heat problems, and probably a great deal else besides. I'm less worried about making bigger batteries than I am about making the little ones quickly! They could easily sell the tiny ones in the billions - there's no lack of market for them.

God save us from Dyson - does the world really need a £300 hand-held hairdryer? What a dreadful waste of brainpower ;¬(

[horneblower] 30/4/2016 14:53

diesel, they said their immediate goal was to miniaturise and increase the power of the current batteries.

I expect they have loads of plans but they were being cautiously conservative at the presentation.

[supernumerary] 30/4/2016 14:53

hb - thanks - at the limit of my knowledge too, but I think you're right, they're the same thing - at least related - you've got to evaporate it from one place in order to deposit it somewhere else!

[horneblower] 30/4/2016 14:50

Re scaling up the battery power, presumably this could be done now using the chips in both serial and parallel matrices. But to get an even better Power density they need to put multi layers inside the chip, ie multi-stacking.

Although they say they have achieved this in the lab I feel it is essential they get on with it.

If they could get say a three layer cell it should output 3 times 3.5volts ie 13.5v. if you created a stack of 1000 of these in a block all neatly wired up in parallel, would you not then have a 13.5volt battery with a capacity of 1,000 x 750 micro Amp hours = 750 amp hours? (I'm a chemical engineer, not an electrical engineer).

If this three stack chip were say 10mm x 10mm x 1.5mm (it would be thinner than three times the single chip) then a block of 1,000 of them could be 100mm x 100mm x 15mm (stacked 10x10x10). That is 2.5 inches square by 3/4 inches high, about the size of a laptop battery!

This would obviously take a little engineering but this is a billion dollar industry for God's sake. Mr Dyson and his 300 engineers might take a month to sort it out!

[diesel] 30/4/2016 14:17

It would be good to know what other battery versions they have in the pipeline, I know it's early days but for their credibility as a player in this field they need a range of products or a hint as to where licensees can go with this process.

[horneblower] 30/4/2016 14:12

Super, Re manufacturing process, I had thought that the cathode, anode etc were laid down by electrostatic deposition. However, They said that the method used was 'evaporation' (which may be the same thing?). This was not a slow process, they explained. Faster than 'sputtering'.
I'm out of my knowledge zone here so I can't say any more and there was nothing further at the presentation apart from something like, "it's not simple but neither is it rocket science.

[juleshoddy] 30/4/2016 13:11

Unless they are going forward with the ARM model of licencing their tech to multiple manufacturing companies, rather than just the one? Hence all the in house testing and efficacy?

[big7ime] 30/4/2016 12:25

I spoke with one of the fund managers at a prev investor meeting who was waiting for mkt cap to reach 100m before investing (can you believe) as his fund only allowed such co's

[big7ime] 30/4/2016 12:23

Thanks hb, I'm very glad you are so positive too as you were sceptical

Good point too juleshoddy, with the mkt cap of a mere 40m it would be chicken feed to a "gorilla" and a major would own the patents etc so competition for their product would be reduced.

I am thinking Ilika is severely undervalued and will re-rate this year.

[supernumerary] 30/4/2016 10:31

hb - thanks for the update - most interesting. Was there any discussion of the issues of scale-up? In particular, I'm curious as to exactly how compatible the Ilika processes are with current chip manufacturing techniques. Ilika make great play of this, but any further colour on the matter would be helpful - how much modification does an existing fab need to start churning out batteries?

[juleshoddy] 30/4/2016 10:08

Thanks for update HB. And the report on The Shard. I always liked the Oxo tower brasserie. On a day like today the outside terrace is fab for views . You're a bit squashed in though. Re Ilika: I'm still perplexed why, if the product is so good, it hasn't been snapped up by a large manufacturer? Imagine if Pana, LG chem, or Samsung had announced this JV tech to market?

[horneblower] 30/4/2016 09:39

Aqua Shard Restaurant:

The restaurant that we went to on the 32nd floor of the Shard (The Aqua Shard) was definitely worth it for the view despite the weather being rather frisky.
The food was frankly mediocre and although I didn't regret going I would not go again mainly due to the cost. I reckon the meal cost at least £50 more for similar at ground level.

We looked in on the Oblix restaurant, also on the 32nd floor, which was slightly less spectacular in that the windows are less tall so less of a feeling of being in the clouds.

[horneblower] 30/4/2016 09:27

I should add that Steve Boydell (FD) reported that their cash position as of their year-end, which just happened to be yesterday was almost exactly £3M giving them an 18 month burn-to-zero position.

He was confident that they would not be needing to come to the market for further working cap funds as licencing deals would provide sufficient income to go forward without.

However, he did not rule out a fundraising exercise in either of the following scenarios...

They find that they want to do a deal with a major (he used the term Gorilla) who was pressurising them to do a deal too cheaply due to their cash position.

They find that their share price has risen to a level where they might opportunistically do a rights issue at a good price.

I told them that personally, as a PI, I would have no difficulty with a fundraising if it speeded up development of bigger battery systems.

[waterloo01] 30/4/2016 09:12

Hornblower, many thanks. Hope you enjoyed the view from the Shard!

[shrout] 29/4/2016 23:56

Many thanks horneblower.

[leonsix1] 29/4/2016 23:18

Thanks for making the journey & for reporting your findings here.

[horneblower] 29/4/2016 22:57

Ok. Here's a short report on the presentation.

There were about 50 attendees and maybe 6 to 8 Ilika bods including...

Mike Inglis, Chairman, ex ARM
Graeme Purdy, CEO
Brian Hayden, Chief Scientific Officer
Steve Boydell, FD
Denis Pasero, Product Manager
+ 2 or 3 others.

I gathered that attendees include fund managers from some major funds including Zeus Capital. Sorry, I didn't network with them.


Mike Inglis introduced and Graeme Purdy did his longish spiel. Graeme is a nice chap but his delivery about the internet of things is old hat and a bit patronising.

Anyway the major points are exactly what is on the Ilika website which is required reading...



Basically, the battery being launched is the Stereax M250 which is a single layer chip about 10mm square and 0.75mm thick weighing 0.25 grams.
It outputs 3.5 volts, charges to 90% in 10 minutes, can happily cycle its charge from full to empty more than 5,000 times and can operate in temperatures between -20degC to +100degC. It features a silicon anode which apparently gives it excellent temperature qualities.

So, it beats the competition in ALL physical ways by between 1.5 and 10 times. As for cost comparison, that is hard to define as there is no like for like but in Q&A later, Graeme suggested that the unit price might be around $1.

No licence deals have been completed but they are talking to many potential clients. They were saying nothing (quite reasonably) regarding when they thought the first licencing deal might be made but Steve Boydell (FD) told me that it would be this year! Yes, dear reader, I snorted at that on your behalf, but he was not being drawn.

The company is currently producing about two wafer discs per week at 48 batteries per wafer.

Samples of the product are being given to suitable clients for initial appreciation. They are given four or five and if they show interest and want more they have to pay - at least, that's what Purdy said.

There was an interesting discussion between a questioner and Mike Inglis (ex ARM) regarding warranties and who carried the responsibility for any product failure. Standard legal stuff, but important.

Working Demonstration:
They showed the product in a working demonstration. A folding pcb board about 35 x 25 mms had a photo voltaic panel on the outside of one half with an M250 battery on the back of it. On the inside other half was a pcb with four other components; a temp sensor, an ARM cpu, a Nordic Bluetooth chip and a TI battery management chip. It transmitted the temp data by Bluetooth to an app on a small tablet computer (which could be 20 meters away). Denis Pasero first cooled the device then heated it up. The temp readout was displayed on the tablet with a 10 second delay. So, voila, a working beacon pad which, wirelessly stuck on your living room wall would happily continue to feed temp data to a base unit for the next ten years without being touched again. The bat being charged by daylight or any artificial light falling on the pv panel.

They need to crack on and produce a multi layer, stacked chip. They say they have achieved this in the lab.

Overall I was highly impressed. True there are no licence deals yet and true its just a tiny chip of a battery. But it works and it's the start of great things imo.

I bought some more shares later.

End

[luminoso] 29/4/2016 12:43

Picture tweeted earlier :-

[the stigologist] 29/4/2016 00:15

I expect bullish presentation and some weekend press comment.

This starts to look like a major technical breakout.

[horneblower] 28/4/2016 22:47

OK. I'll do my best.
I'm going for lunch with my daughter to the restaurant at the top of the Shard after the presentation. So don't expect a report until after the market closes.
However, I might be able to do a very brief thumbs up (or down) tomorrow pm...after I bought or sold, you understand ☺.

[toptrump1] 28/4/2016 20:46

Hb I do hope you can attend. Hopefully your first set of questions will be answered in the presentation but if there's only one question you can get in, pls the q about licensing deals - at what stage are they with interested parties
I was lead to believe they were in talks with a number of potential licensees, have they been testing in conjunction with these licensees products yet?
Thanks in advance and good luck