DNWL: They have achieved, in a university laboratory, the production of a 100nm microprocessor at the request of a potential partner.
David, please allow me to make a correction: POET does not have produced a microprocessor. What they have built are a microprocessor's most basic building blocks (usually called "devices" in POET's communication). Quoting from POET's news release as of 2014-05-27, such devices are e.g. "… hetero-structure field-effect transistors (HFETs) and bipolar transistors (HBTs). This design basis will support complementary HFET (CHFET), bi-CHFET, bipolar and thyristor device fabrication." (This quote refers to what the PET/TDK initiative does. I don't know whether they actually built these devices for the 100 nm demonstration, but you get the idea.)
To build microprocessors and other more complex integrated circuits, you literally need billions of these devices and arrange them in certain ways in order to do what a microprocessor is supposed to do. However, this is nothing POET is doing or is able to do. This is one of the reasons why partners are needed and what partnering companies or customers would do.
Compare it to a company which has invented special bricks which are far superior to traditional bricks. They are exceptionally light, exceptionally robust, exceptionally heat-insulating, and exceptionally cheap. The company excells in these bricks, but would not be able to build houses, public buildings and factories with its bricks, because these tasks require very different skills set they don't have. To be successful, they have to convince architects and construction firms to deploy their bricks. The inventors are probably able to build some demonstration stuff on their own capacity, like a wall or a cubicle, but for more complex things like a complete model house they would need the external help of a foundry – ehm, sorry, of a construction firm.
At least this is how I understand it.
Andrea ("Powered by POET")
