POET Technologies Inc.

What Joel has brought up about 100nm feature size being too big has inspired some different thoughts on the matter. (By the way, thanks for stopping by for the discussion, Joel)

Most of us that started learning about the POET tech over the last few years probably started from a lower launchpad from an semiconductor understanding point of view. That said, Joel, don't discount the knowledge on this board about what POET "is" and the importance of the tech to the semiconductor industry.

There are still some misunderstandings by some on this board who have been around awhile but just don't comprehend some of the finer points of the process. And as evident by your responses, you still have some misunderstanding about what POET is and can do. But based on the background you mention, you should quickly understand about all the benefits of POET if you take the time to dig into it.

There is quite alot of information out there. (good summary TechGC)

A quote from your first post, Joel:

"We have arrived at the current point because no one has yet managed to build a comprehensive alternative for silicon that provides all the necessary benefits *of* silicon and justifies investing in entirely different manufacturing technologies."

A very important point needs to be made on this and it seems you have overlooked it on your research of POET.

POET can be fabricated by current semiconductor fabrication equipment in use today (Dr. Taylor did alot of the developement work on equipment that was close to 30 years old.) with very little additional investment.

I've gotten away from the original reason I wanted to post tonight. Most of this so far was directed at Joel but now back to the thoughts he inspired by his comments about feature size.

To the rest of the board, its been noted before the changing speed comparisons with silicon from the news releases.(100x.....50X......20X.....) With so many factors affecting the numbers its all just speculation as to why, but here is one more theory to chew on.

I understand the argument fairchij tried to convey to Joel about why would there be a need to compare the size of the die of a POET chip to that of Si when there are so many other factors that negate the need to limit it to Silicon dimensions.(more efficient reducing the need for additional battery space and addition cooling, mutiple chips needed in Si reduced to one, etc...) But since the Silicon ship is the one we're trying to turn, if they bring up an issue that they say needs to by addressed, then we address it. You need 100nm? There you go, 100nm. You need it to fit into the same footprint as 22nm Si? Yeah, we can do that. We would lose some performance but when you have so much headroom you can afford to cut it a little. Just a thought.

The other thought I had regarding the changing speed comparisons is with regard to implementing a governor to POET. I read an article once that commented it was amazing how long all the different semiconductor companies have been able to stick to the ITRS (International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors) which if I understand it correctly is a document that, among other things, lays out the steps or generations that everyone will progress through with regard to feature size.(28nm,22nm,etc...) The article mentioned that there had been no skipping of steps for competitive reasons or such. And I think all of that worked out for the best interests of all. The end of Moores law was constantly in front of everyone that they were afraid of reaching the end before each new generation of feature size was able to pay for its own developement.

I think this may have more to do with the speed throttling than any other factor. Why start too close to what will ultimately be the speed limit of POET. Look where we are with silicon. No actual speed improvements in close to ten years! I thought that the reduction to 100nm was pretty aggressive given where we were only a year ago with the speeds that were reported at 1um. Impressive to say the least. But a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, right? So if we have to drive the technology to sub 100nm to get the attention and commitment (which it appears we have) to bring POET to the world, then so be it.

We may loose some room to run, but hey, at least we get into the race.

Green