Iqe Share Discussion Threads

[thecrunk] 02/5/2018 10:19

What does a machine look like anyone have a link? Also why is it so time consuming to install it. Assume the answer is that its an incredibly complex excercise.

[mad foetus] 02/5/2018 10:12

How many contractors are working on site at the moment? It could be that we are building infrastructure as quickly as possible commensurate with ensuring continued quality. Perhaps the number of machines is not the only metric the board are thinking about.

[senor_sensible] 02/5/2018 10:05

Most semiconductor companies are offering a 52 week leadtime, Silicon is in very short supply and will take a couple of years to normalise, increased capacity will help. Area of exponential growth going forward will be GaN, especially in the Auto EV sector where there is expectation of at least 10 years of YoY growth in semiconductor use for PowerTrain, Anciliary equipment, Smart functions and also on board and offboard fast charging. strong buy and hold here..........Biggest problem we have is meeting the ever growing market demand

[adejuk] 02/5/2018 10:04

what happened to 'cheap as chips' under 160?

[richardc77] 02/5/2018 10:00

TW, true to a degree, however I prefer the 3rd parties to confirm the market is going from strength to strength than the opposite...and I am relatively happy that IQE are not ordering extra machines before they are very certain they need them. They could obviously see the sluggish QTR the sector just went through and took a conservative approach. However if we get to the end of this year and they haven't ordered more that would be a little more concerning to me.

[twatcher] 02/5/2018 09:50

I think the certainty of increase in the future of all the markets that IQE serve is well established by now. So unless there is a global depression within the semi-condutor industry, all these great 3rd party forward looking statements have little/no effect on IQEs fortunes.

As Hammerd2 pointed out some time ago, and re-iterated by Sheep_Herder, the key metric is IQE announcing a ramp-up of wafer creation capability beyond that which is already known and factored in.

If they don't do that, then unless they can dramatic change the profit per wafer, by selecting output for which they can charge more, then their fortunes in the next 2-3 years are quite visible, regardless of industry announcements.

[richardc77] 02/5/2018 09:40

Added another tranch, will buy more below £1, however I'm happy with what I'm hearing and whilst I understand where sheepy is coming from I remain very happy with where the markets that IQE supply will be in 12-24 months time.

Look forward to the next earnings updates from several important market players during the remainder of this week.

I'm forward thinking, not backward, and remain more confident now than ever (partly because I was not as carried away as Sweeny and Sheepy were 6-12 months back);)

GLTALTH

[pi0110] 02/5/2018 09:29

Never mind Sheepy, it may never happen! There's always the Samaritans!

[sheep_herder] 02/5/2018 09:24

I would previously have been quite excited by all this press. Now I just look at how many machines are on order. No new orders, no change to the slow ramp.

[suffersnofools] 02/5/2018 09:21

Anticipated relief rally. I feel we need a wider improvement in sector sentiment to make sustained share price progress. Macro trumps stock specific at the moment imo. Fed rates this afternoon will determine wider market direction.

[grity] 02/5/2018 09:09

As Sweenoid says dot the i,s & cross the t,s
AMS are up almost 7% too !

[adejuk] 02/5/2018 08:56

shorts are still active and will be for some time
they will sell into any rise

[owenga] 02/5/2018 08:37

Someone trying to keep a lid on the price rise today with lots of 10k sells. Looks like a losing battle!

[rathean] 02/5/2018 08:11

Need to break through 110p ceiling of falling channel then it's on to 125.

[sweenoid] 02/5/2018 07:42

Make a cup of tea, or skip this post entirely

As I said last week, my comments will come less often, this post contains some news that is positive,Macom in particular.

Commentary in annual report excellent, very positive indeed, I love the term ‘plethora’ in terms of opportunities and demand,conjuring visions of more than or excessive, splendid. 2018, was indeed transformative and I love the headline comment - “the scene is set”. Did anyone else notice that Canaccord is still named as house broker, but that Stifel are now listed along with Peel Hunt as joint- brokers?

Who bets against Apple?- I tell you who, id*ots do, it’s the same quarter after quarter, scare stories, nutty commentators spouting their usual under or is it un- researched cl*p-trap, and readers lap it up, press report it ...and then Apple beats, time and time again.... this comment in the CC sums up the strength, against all odds of X “ Also, since we split the line with the launch of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus back in 2014, this is the first cycle that we've ever had where the top of the line iPhone model has also been the most popular. “
Apple will be tight lipped but believe it or not iPhones still sell in spades and ‘OUR ‘ interest, the X is the biggest seller - what a surprise-NOT! The X is overpriced and WILL disappear soon, to be replaced by better spec models, ALL with 3D sensing and ALL cheaper than the X ( that’s my prediction) what do you think that will do for sales?;-) , there is going to be a veritable PLETHORA of IQE’s iPhones coming our way, that’s gonna be rather nice for revenues...and profits, why are punters getting their nickers in a twist , the recent share price movements are a heaven sent opportunity ( IMHO) for savvy investors.



11-V1 reported yesterday , yet another company totally positive about 3D sensing - no surprises there then, but if you look through their report it’s totally obvious they are way behind IQE in terms of capacity, and certainly production volumes.

Macom, an important partner for both our Indium phosphide and GAN on Silicon business also ‘beat’ in their quarter, their CEO, was far more upbeat in the CC , telecoms business turning a corner, secular growth drivers, demand progressively increasing from China. PON demand recovering and progressing to 10G , also 5G stimulating demand for 25 and 100 gig, ALL relevant and POSITIVE for IQE.Data centre demand ( big for IQE) growing yet again, robust demand, and Macom are supply constrained ( demand bigger than supply) :-) laser demand ++, we do all that! :-)

Now the BIG news from Macom, regarding IQE’s GAN ON SILICON.

Macom GAN is-classified as a disruptive opportunity,on the transmit side but they are also very positive on the receive side with MIMO which uses GAN as well , in short 2018 will at last see increasing production and increasing revenues 1/4 by 1/4 extending into 2019 -Macom have 3 ( THREE) volume production orders from major customers- we ARE IN PRODUCTION folks! . A big stimulus for OEM’s was the Macom/ST agreement , whereby STMicro provide the manufacturing capacity allowing for volume, scale and surge production . The CEO said MACOM “ are off to the races” with GAN ,here are some key comments from the CC , my advice is read the whole CC , it fabulous for Macom AND IQE.



Quotes
“Coming out of Mobile World Congress and our ST announcement last quarter, MACOM is now enjoying executive-level sponsorship within two of the two top-three OEMs in Europe and Asia. Their executives view GaN becoming available from ST's high-volume silicon fab as the catalyst that over time will enable GaN proliferation across mainstream base stations.”
“In summary, we expect our various optical, GaN and FEM products for 4G and 5G to progressively contribute to top-line growth quarter by quarter in calendar 2018.”

This Q+A is a bit long but it’s simply LUVERLY, if you understand how important it is for now current and future revenues

Harsh V. Kumar - Piper Jaffray & Co.
Understood. That's very helpful as a clarification. And then I was intrigued by your comments on GaN on Silicon. You mentioned – and I missed the last part of it – something about three production either orders or three customers that you have that have given you production-type orders. Would you clarify what do you mean by that?
John R. Croteau - MACOM Technology Solutions Holdings, Inc.
Sure. So previous quarters, I've been reporting on early programs that we – initial programs we had received production wins. We've now received the volume production orders, if you remember, I was talking about they had to go through a sequence of preproduction builds. And so, we've passed all those gates. Now, we have the production on those first three programs. So, that's vitally important, because performing operationally was the last thing that we had to do. And we'll have to continue to perform. You always need to perform, obviously, operationally. So, that's a big deal. I think the big shift this quarter was the response to the ST announcement exceeded, frankly, even my own expectations. I've long known supply chain issues are very, very important in that base station world as demand is quite volatile. So, the ability to surge to meet demand is vitally important. And this is arguably the first GaN supply chain that can actually operate with the same scale, capacity, surge capability as LDMOS. So like I said in the scripted remarks, we're actually being sponsored now in top-down at the executive levels, 2 of the guys – very relevant guys who matter. So, it's I think we're off to the races at this point.
Harsh V. Kumar - Piper Jaffray & Co.
And John, would you clarify when can we – I know that base stations are expected to go down in the ground about the end of the year or early next year. Would you expect revenues in by September quarter or will it be the December quarter, some starting revenues?
John R. Croteau - MACOM Technology Solutions Holdings, Inc.
Yeah, it's THIS quarter. We've got the production orders, we're shipping. So I mean I want to set expectations, though. We're guiding one quarter at a time. And one, two, three programs is a starting point. It's walking before you run. Where you really start piling up the revenue is when you start proliferating geometrically across programs at the guys who matter. And that's the role that the ST – I called it a catalyst in the scripted remarks, to be able to proliferate across those programs and scale to meaningful penetration, to be able to meaningfully contribute to growth, that will come with time and geometrically and quarter by quarter. So, I don't want anybody to think there's some tsunami of revenue that's impending. But there is no question that progressively, quarter by quarter by quarter, over the coming quarters and years, the vision looks to be on track to be realized.
Robert McMullan - MACOM Technology Solutions Holdings, Inc.
Not to compromise what John said, but we, for the first time, shipped production orders.





- I have touted the importance of GAN ON SILICON for IQE for 3 years, at last the revenues will be flowing and most importantly NIL revenue is factored intoo current analyst estimates.

No one has commented ( no surprise there) on Seagate, one of those IQE NDA’s ( using our VCSELS for their new HAMR drives) saying this in their earnings release.

We continue to make progress towards the introduction of our heat-assisted magnetic recording technology.( HAMR) This next-generation recording platform will open up a rich design space for high-capacity nearline drives that will push capacity points up 24 terabytes per drive and beyond and offer great economic value for our customers. We anticipate launching our HAMR portfolio in volume in 2019, and the future investment costs are already contemplated in our existing operating expense and capital expenditure long-term models.

They are already producing millions of ‘test drives’ the market here is simply huge for IQE- regardless of what ‘some’ posters have said the demand for HDD is growing rapidly to satisfy insatiable data Storage demand.

Later today at about lunch time Lumentum are releasing results and having a CC , IQE supplies 100% of Lumentum’s VCSELS for 3D sensing and Lumentum IS and WILL BE the main VCSEL design for Apple’s future iPhone supply, expect them to be VERY UPBEAT about their NEXT quarter.

Go work it out, at least one of the revenue streams that is entirely new and will expand 1/4 by 1/4 has started ( GAN ON SILICON) I believe some of the others will also follow through in 2018.

S

[mad foetus] 02/5/2018 06:50

I think the point is that we are in a long term declining wedge with parameters between 102 and 107. As discussed previously, moving out of either side of the wedge should lead to a sudden and swift move. That is the short term prospect.

[multibagger] 02/5/2018 06:48

I think we will close circa 110p range today - there will be a bounce IMHO albeit a smaller one than some are expecting. Let's see what happens.

[rivaldo] 02/5/2018 06:44

Looking forward to today. iPhone sales were extremely robust, and certainly much better than the pessimists had been forecasting. There could be a very good bounce here today and over the next few days, particularly if anyone's been shorting on the basis of the Apple sales and has to cut their losses.

[mad foetus] 02/5/2018 06:25

But we are not simply supplying iPhones, we are a key part of the technology that the iPhone X introduced to mass market and which has been deemed successful. It will be in all top end smartphones, iPads, VR kit etc until it is superseded, probably by another product underpinned by IQE. The key takeaway from Apple as far as I am concerned was Tim Cook saying that the technological innovations of the iPhone X set the template for the next decade of Apples development. But obviously, our results need to reflect the massive growth in multiple areas that we appear to be a key part of.

[mad foetus] 02/5/2018 05:57

Macon's report is interesting. It seems to tie in with what others were saying, namely that there was a dip in demand around the end of last year, Q1 2018, followed by an expected massive ramp up from about now. 5G leading the way for Macom.Speculating, that might all be because people were busy making and testing new components in advance of mass manufacture. It seems to me that IQE understood this and have been careful to ramp up no sooner than is needed.It would be good to get the odd RNS though about machines coming in stream etc. Whatever, Macom up about 8% overall yesterday, Lumentum up sharply and reporting today. Given the technicals, today should see us up and out of the wedge, which will attract buyers on the TA alone. I called the bottom at 102 last week and am willing to double down on that bet now. 115 today is my estimation.