New e-mail from Clay Chase: Quantum Materials C
Post# of 22456
Quantum Materials Corp. Update (OTCQB: QTMM)
Presents QD's/QD-Film and QD-LED's at SID/Display Week in Los Angeles - Granted Key IP for Continuous Flow Processing of Cadmium-Free Quantum Dots
May 30, 2017
We caught up with Quantum Materials Corp last week during Display Week (SID) at the Los Angeles Convention Center where they displayed their latest samples of cadmium-free quantum dot materials and met with prospective customers in the display industry for the purpose of establishing supply agreements for quantum dot materials. During the show, we had the opportunity to talk with Quantum Materials Corp CEO Stephen Squires as well as with Quantum's Senior Director of Asian Business Development, Toshi Ando, who had just returned from Taiwan attending a MicroLED Conference (Quantum was sharing booth space at Display Week/SID with one of their VAR group's: Uniglobe Kisco).
The Uniglobe Kisco/QMC booth was in a great location at the end of a row (corner space) adjacent to, and very close to the entrance of the new product area I-Zone exhibit, which got a lot of traffic during the show. In addition to QMC's display showing samples of quantum dots in resin (multiple colors including blue) and quantum dot coated film (several samples of cadmium-free film were displayed including red, green, blue and red-green) what we found to be very interesting at this show was a display of small illuminated LED's which were coated with QMC's quantum dots. The display included red, green and blue QD coated LED's and these were all extremely bright. Quantum Materials has talked about their ability to produce highly stable (these LED's had already logged many hours of "on time" , high performance level blue quantum dots, but this was the first time we had seen them in person and this was an impressive display. We have included a picture of the display (the semicircle of lights on the presentation table to the right and inset photo to the left) but unfortunately the iphone we used to take these photos for some reason pushes the color of these dots to a whitish color and you are not able to see the vivid red, blue and green LED's. Toshi explained that they were very excited about their ability to coat LED's with QD's as this has been talked about as being the next variant of QD enhanced displays - substituting the blue back light of current QD LCD design with arrays of blue, green and red QD coated LED bulbs to power the back light, and it's important to note here that this variant requires a highly stable, high performance blue quantum dot (as well as red and green dots), which from the looks of this show and recent press releases from the Company that Quantum Materials Corp. is able to produce at scale with their proprietary continuous flow process. As the surface temperature for LED's is quite high, the fact that QMC is able to produce red, green and blue quantum dots that remain stable in this more extreme environment is quite telling as to the quality and stability of their materials.
We also see Quantum Materials Corp's ability to produce blue quantum dots as an important milestone with regard to another variant of display design that is now being discussed in the market: MicroLED. MicroLED' s are extremely small individual red, green and blue LED's that are produced and then moved and permanently bonded onto the backplane of a display. This technology direction (which is being advanced primarily by Apple to compete with OLED display technology and will likely show up first in the mobile/handheld market) still looks to be a few years off from commercial readiness/adoption, but much of the work in this direction is focusing on QD's as being a key enabling component of the solution and provide this new type of display not only extremely high color gamut levels, but also provide efficient, bright screen levels to preserve battery power (which continues to be THE holy grail in all things mobile!).
We asked QMC CEO Stephen Squires about this new design direction and he said that while the production of blue quantum dots is a key addition to their portfolio of quantum dot materials, and they are keeping a close eye on the microLED market space, the Company's core focus remains the completion of commercially available red/green quantum dot film. Stephen further added that the Company is continuing to work with 5 film coaters at this time to make available to the market a high performance level and affordable solution for providing high color gamut in the current blue led light source (BLU) variant of QD displays. They had some of this film on display at the show and are now providing larger samples of quantum dot materials to prospective partner film coaters as they scale up to larger runs of film for testing and evaluation by OEM groups - and while he couldn't share with us too much detail on this subject at this time, that the Company and their film partners are advancing rapidly on this front. This is the design (red/green QD film) that Samsung and a handful of other quantum dot based display makers have been producing, and due to its ability to provide the viewer with a very high color gamut screen, we have seen a rapid uptake for this design variant in the market. In fact the uptake of QD displays has been and is predicted to dwarf the uptake of the OLED display market with several analysts predicting the number of QD sets by 2020 to reach north of 40 million panels and to get to well over 200 million panels produced annually by 2025 (which is roughly 80% of the entire flat panel market space).
Last week Quantum Materials Corp. announced that a key patent had been granted to the Company for large scale continuous flow processing of cadmium free quantum dots. In the release Stephen Squires stated: “This is an important milestone in consolidating and protecting our intellectual property for large scale volume synthesis of non-cadmium quantum dots. Continuous synthesis micro-reaction technology is the solution for synthesis of high-quality nanoparticles due to the many advantages our patented process provides, including precise temperature control, mixing efficiencies, fast reaction speed and parallel operation for scalable volume production. We have begun continuous-flow volume production of high-efficiency blue quantum dots that we believe will play an important role in the future of quantum dot light-emitting diodes (QD-LEDs). Prior to this point, blue quantum dots exhibited unfavorable energy levels in comparison to red and green quantum dots with respect to device efficiency."
Here is a link to the full press release: http://qmcdots.com/press/press.php
As we got ready to leave SID and head back down to San Diego, we asked Stephen the burning question that all QMC shareholders are looking to know: When will we see an announcement that QMC is supplying dots/film to one of the many display makers that either have already, or soon plan to be manufacturing displays incorporating quantum dots? Stephen thought for a moment and answered by reiterating that the Company is in discussions with a number of prospective customers and component manufacturers (they displayed a short list of these names in one of the slides below during the show and also disclosed they are in discussions with BOE, one of China's largest and most progressive display makers in their most recent corporate update, link below) and is pushing very hard at this time to reach that date as soon as possible. We got a sense from our discussions with Stephen that based on the quality of red and green cadmium-free quantum dots they are producing at this time that their QD materials are generating quite a bit of interest in the market and that they are getting very close to this major milestone.
The key takeaway for us from Display Week this year was how quantum dots have in a short period transitioned from a novelty "next generation" technology used in high end premium displays to a mainstream material that many are expecting to reach massive market penetration and become ubiquitous in display's over the next few years. For those groups that can supply cadmium-free, high quality QD's in volume at a reasonable price point (and we believe that to be a very short list at this time) the financial upside and opportunity looks to be massive. Based on our visit to SID this year along with the many hours we have spent with QMC management discussing their products, proprietary manufacturing process and the rapid market uptake for quantum dots, we definitely see Quantum Materials Corp close to, or possibly at the top of that list (note: we have included a number of slides from a PPT presentation that QMC displayed in their booth at SID this year).
QMC Site Visit Planned for June 2017
We will be visiting Quantum Materials Corp. corporate headquarters in San Marcos, Texas in the next month or so to get a first hand look at the most recent advancements of the Company (and possibly make up a batch of blue quantum dots!) and will be sure to get that report out to everyone once completed.
Also, if you missed the recent Shareholder Letter from QMC, we have included that link below.
A key take away from that report is the mention that QMC is presently engaged in discussions with BOE Technology Group - one of China's largest and most technologically advanced flat panel display OEM's - to improve viewing quality of flat panel displays via the utilization of quantum dots.
Here is a link to the report: http://qmcdots.com/ShareholderLetter.pdf
Slides from QMC's 2017 Display Week (SID) Presentation:
[Pictures]
Regards,
Clay Chase
SD Torrey Hills Capital
858 456-7300