The article highlighted in macwheaton’s post is well worth a read.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/15/engadget-primed-nanometers/
It establishes that the end of Moores’s Law is accepted generally in the industry, but it also points out that speed alone is not the reason why the public buys a particular devices. Other features are important and here POET will score highly in several ways.
John Biggs of ARM says in the article ’ "I can't see any reason for the ordinary person to care about nanometers. If you're buying a car, you're looking for practical and tangible benefits, not technology for technology's sake. The same applies when you buy a phone: you want a long battery life and the processing power that you need. Transistor size is just a means to an end."
So what are the practical tangible benefits does POET offer:
· Combining components found in devices on one chip will allow space for other desirable features to be included on devices.
· Solar Power is part of POET technical know-how which connected with low power usage will allow for much longer battery life, with power control on board the chip.
· IR and RF are other expertise areas which will be available for innovation of applications on board POET devices.
· Optical expertise makes me feel that device security features such as face/iris/fingerprint recognition are all possible.
· The speed of a POET chip at 40nm will be sizzling which I am sure was why that node size was chosen for POET. It will have been selected to be better than anything else the market can produce.
· On speed we need to appreciate that no matter how fast the processor there are plenty of other reasons why your device will run slowly, complementary improvements are needed in communications, to deliver truly stunning performance. Again POET scores highly in its ability to support the communication systems devices connect to. Let alone Internally in a POET device where the lack of a bus needed to push electrons around your device for the integral parts to communicate with each other makes for speed as well as cheaper and easier construction and the opportunity to pack more features into the device. Couple this with lower power leading to longer battery life and the opportunity to make its solar powered provides POET with a list of selling points to end users and manufacturers
· For manufacturers the features which make POET unique will be the reduction of cost through a smaller bill of materials that go into POET powered devices, the ability to concentrate component parts on one chip and a better designed less costly manufacturing processes will reduce cost. Who will not want more for less?
All this is set against an environment of enormous development costs to push CMOS Si to its technical limits. It really is hard to see why POET cannot be anything other than a fantastic success.
