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[jugu] 28/3/2017 14:24

Aiming he is correct creo allows CS materials on cheap si templates, CS material could be GaN or GaAs.
This is beauty of creo, the commercial benefits are yet to be realised by IQE but looks pretty close.

[sweenoid] 28/3/2017 13:40

Maxwell - u seem a little confused as to what IQE does , no surprise as it's very complex
But to refer to IQE's 'filters' is misleading - sorry if I am the cause of confusion.

1st the material used for wafers at present is silicon. CS materials will work better but are more expensive , prohibitively so, the solution is to stick a CS like GAN - gallium nitride on a silicon wafer - much cheaper but not easy as all sorts of issues occur at the interface - over simplistically'shorting' occurs, by using cREO in a patented way these issues are stopped and in volume production brings the price down to silicon levels with the advantage of better efficiency and less++ power loss. OEM's buy those wafers and then make THEIR filters and chips etc from them.

Sorry if that's basic but that's how I understand it
S

[maxwellsdemon] 28/3/2017 13:12

sweenoid,

Yes, the filters are where the money is on the RF front end. Have you any idea how IQE's cREO filters work. I cannot find any info (eg patents etc) on them. GaN is a piezoelectric material and this property may have something to do with the operation of the IQE RF filters.

Are the filters tunable?

[poombear] 28/3/2017 13:04

Not saying much but nice to be appreciated.

[boboty] 28/3/2017 12:05

Thanks for the homework - a big cpu, a small one they are still cpus and use power to work. For a fridge it may be less significant but for most applications power maybe form battery, such as remote sensors and therefore power is important. I bought an IOT weather monitor - put in a battery and stick on an outside wall then you have local weather data to amuse yourself with direct to your phone or computer. Time will tell but for a self confessed expert you don't give me great confidence. Anyone who starts a comment of with don't you know I design arm chips must lack the ability to explain clearly their ideas and expect us to believe them just because of what they say they have done and not because of their explanation.

[hammerd2] 28/3/2017 11:55

A quick pre 2017/18 ISA allowances dip would be lovely 😊

[sweenoid] 28/3/2017 10:55

some figures £ you might be interested in showing how important it will be if IQE can use their cREO technology to get into more RF content in smarphones, it's quite illuminating.

RF content by cost in a 2G phone is 55 cents, typical 3G $2.75, global LTE $13.25!

Of that the filter content is worth 25cents, 125cents and $7.25 correspondingly.

Also we get access to switching and tuning and power amps too, but the big daddy is the filter content. By the sounds of it from the earnings report IQE look to be at an advanced stage of qualifying and validating this solution with I guess Skyworks, at present our revenue has NO contribution from RF filters, my guess is late 2017 and fully in 2018 and certainly for 5G we will be the major wafer supplier for those filters , perhaps the only one that offers the benefit of CS over silicon

Go work it out :-)

[poombear] 28/3/2017 10:37

Iqe are involved in a program with ST.

[twatcher] 28/3/2017 10:17

This article suggests that ST is supplying 3D sensing/imaging in the next iphone.

[richardc77] 28/3/2017 09:47

I am excited about IQE but rational. I will never blindly take "their" word for what is "valuable" just remember how wrong HY was about such things...

[sweenoid] 28/3/2017 09:00

No one knows who our OEM's supply , but Macom have nothing to do with smartphones
Skyworks are likely suppliers but they seem much more upbeat about Huawei as a partner.
Woukd be great if the new Sammy has 3D sensing but I doubt it , it is touted as having AI capabilities



Its best not to get too fixed on the technology, basically anything 3G and beyond gets increasingly complex and DEMANDS more CS materials , so we win - win - as per the interview we win on volume of high spec phones AND their complexity :-)

To Sheepy - It's IQE that are getting excited about 3D sensing / gesture recognition etc , hammering on about it at AGM's and on video's , they KNOW what the value is , we don't ;-) but since they keep stressing it, it must be valuable
YES I agree about RF content , if we can get into the filters we DOUBLE-TREBLE the ammount we earn from each phone - big money that's where our cREO looks to be a big winner

[sheep_herder] 28/3/2017 08:55

I don't understand why you're so excited about 3D sensing sweenoid. What do you think is the dollar contribution per phone? I would have thought the increase in RF content would far outweigh that of a VCSEL used in a 3D module.

[poombear] 28/3/2017 08:29

Sweenoid the Samsung Galaxy S8 is unveiled tomorrow, are IQE involved with Samsung through other suppliers (Macom, Skywork etc). I haven't seen anything to that effect? Will be looking out for 3D sensor content...

[sweenoid] 28/3/2017 07:59

The most relevant part of post above is last line on 3D sensing , if you cross reference to the Drew Nelson interviews that Rivaldo linked you will see how $$$important that is, I thought he was very 'diplomatic' stating that he expected 3D sensining in the next iteration....or two ;-) it's gonna be in the next one folks

s

[sheep_herder] 28/3/2017 07:37

boboty, you don't seem to realise that there are big differences between the CPUs used in a PC versus those used for IoT. As homework, ok suggest you do some reading on MCUs and the Cortex-M range of CPUs. Then come back and tell everyone about them and why they don't use lots of energy.

[revoman] 28/3/2017 00:43

To be fair Sweenoid, you'd do well to take your own advice at times.

[boboty] 27/3/2017 22:39

Sheepherder did you know you are talking to a private investor !! Sheep herder I'm not talking about processing power - I'm talking about the power it takes to run a processor - that is energy used per second. Processors do us a lot of power - that is why they are usually connected to a heat sink and have air blown across them. You may have designed processors so I am surprised you didn't realise they use a lot of power and cooling is an issue. Nelson in his recent Agm video messages talked about Vcels and their use begin considered for the generation mobile phones where they will be used to build up a 3D image of surroundings for such things as gesture recognition - games and who knows. I wouldn't be surprised if IOT uses were not forthcoming.

[maxwellsdemon] 27/3/2017 22:19

You can search the thread for references to Tesla.

The results should show up in the following link:

[lpavlou] 27/3/2017 22:06

I see that Tesla are looking to commence selling their solar roof tiles from next week. I recall a poster on this BB posting a possible link with Tesla.

[lucas5950] 27/3/2017 17:27

I have also had my worries, but looking more into things, IQE is on a much better footing then back in 2011 and this time it's seeing growth. As the buys bring in the rise the sells will bring in the drops, normal.

[big7ime] 27/3/2017 17:01

CS selling, Where did you see that?
I'm also wondering if the graph is parabolic? It looks identical to 2011 which may mean it's heading back again. History repeating itself.
This time is different most will say and I hope so as I still have a sizeable holding on a good profit here and would hate to see it evaporate yet again.

[sheep_herder] 27/3/2017 16:41

Yep, nice interview with some good snippets. I was actually re-reading the MACOM blurb the other night and found a product list of all their Gan-on-Si products. They have quite a range to compete against SiC.

The article I posted the other day regarding DFB's is also worth a read for the technically minded.

[twatcher] 27/3/2017 15:36

Sold some today. I normally never mention buy or sell. I challenge anyone to see me state buy/sell in my long LONG history on the IMG threads (20+ years ?)

I mention it only because it's the first time I've seen Charles Stanley (again I must be with them close to 20 years), sell a single block by automatically breaking it down into apparently random small lots.

I obviously know this happens, but it's the first time I've seen it on a transaction of mine.