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Re: NNDMWell, this fella sees what you see and more: Anonymous20 hours ago "This post will deal with NNDM’s business plan; if you are a basher you don’t need to read any further as it will deal with facts and logic-based speculation on how NNDM can expand their business. A key question is why acquire an existing PCB manufacturer, especially since the etching techniques used in existing PCB manufacturing is very environmentally unfriendly? Today’s appointment of Hanan Gino indicates that they are serious about making an acquisition of an existing PCB manufacturer. I think that is because NNDM will pursue a dual-tracked strategy in the future based upon both Dragonfly and consumables sales and their Nanos 3D fabrication service. Here is how they can expand the Nanos service exponentially – through in-house, on contract, high end 3D PCB production. The current price for a Dragonfly is about $400K. While I don’t know how many small PCBs one printer can produce in a day, I will assume that it is requires several hours as the two inks (dielectric and conductive) are printed at temperature differences of about 800 degrees. That indicates that the process cannot be too rapid and these physical limitations have generated the legitimate concern that this printing process will never be suitable for mass production. So how does NNDM get into a large portion of the hi-end PCB market? Here’s my best guess: they build their own production facility for companies to out-source to. While some companies will want their own Dragonflies for design and limited run production, the current cost and speed prohibits print runs in the tens of thousands to low millions. However, imagine if NNDM has a facility with 100-200 printers all connected to one master command computer. Rather than having 100s of fully-equipped Dragonflies, the facility could have many printers all linked to the same master computer. I think once NNDM has taken the technology to the level that its speed would make such a production facility efficient, they could build such a “printer-heavy” facility. Trying to estimate the cost of such a facility is a guess, but here is a try. Based on latest cost of goods sold from their annual report, I think NNDM is marking-up a Dragonfly by 100% - so their cost to produce one is under $200K. A standalone printer that has no interface / computer but simply is connected to a centralized command system would likely cost less than half a full Dragonfly, so let’s go with $100k per printer. Given that, for about $100 million, NNDM could build a facility with 1,000 printers connected to a master computer. In one print run – 1,000 identical PCBs are produced. (Given that NNDM has $1.49 billion, building such a facility is well within their means). I think that acquiring a PCB manufacturer is a way to enter more of the market, not just to sell Dragonflies but also to in-house produce PCBs (high-end – i.e. – very small, but high density of electronics / layers). Such a multi-printer production facility would mitigate the length of time required to produce PCBs by 3D printing – i.e. overcome the physical limitations of time by having many machines operating simultaneously. Obviously, the engineers at NNDM are considering whether what I suggest is feasible – it is no coincidence that they have started their Nanos service and the AME academy. They are working to spread the news on what 3D AME can produce – when there is sufficient demand for mass-production of high-end PCBs, then such a production facility will make sense and be profitable. Here are the types of applications that would make sense for PCB production at such a facility (i.e. – they are small, complex, and cannot be produced by traditional means) – nano satellite components, insertable / wearable medical devices, high-precision military ordnance guidance systems, portable specialized communications devices (military or special encryption), etc. In summary I don’t think NNDM’s future depends solely on the sale of thousands of Dragonflies and the inks (the razor and blades model) but they also will pursue a strategy of in-house production by building a facility that can meet “mass production” – not mass in the millions of one type of PCB, but PCB runs in the thousands for specific, high-end, high cost electronics." |
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