Poet Technologies propels forward with new wave of chip technology

10:09 am by Anwar Ali

The industry is approaching the end of the line in terms of how far silicon-based circuits can take it, and now attention will turn to cheaper and more powerful approaches

It's a critical time in the history of Poet Technologies (CVE:PTK) as the Toronto-based company takes its ground-breaking technology to produce the next wave of microchips on a strategic journey.

The industry is approaching the end of the line in terms of how far silicon-based circuits can take it, and now attention will turn to cheaper and more powerful approaches, such as Poet's integration of optics and electronics onto a single chip.

At this junction, Poet is carefully deciding how it will tread as it conducts a review over the next three to four months. The company doesn't want to reinvent the wheel, as the old cliché goes, but is asking key questions about what a semiconductor solution should be: “Is it disruptive enough? Can you bolt it on?”

Poet believes the answer is yes for its proprietary platform, developed at its R&D facility at the University of Connecticut. The company, which recently rebranded itself after divesting its solar assets, has formed a special committee that combines decades of semiconductor research expertise.

“I wouldn’t call it a crossroads. I would call it a pause to decide how we’re going to make money," executive director Peter Copetti told Proactive Investors in an interview.

The committee will decide whether to sell or license the technology in the military and commercial sectors, two markets targeted as early adopters.

The special committee, chaired by Copetti, is driven to unlock the full value of Poet’s intellectual property and that could mean a merger and private equity buyout. But it will also fight to protect its IP with a shareholder rights plan, if necessary.

With that in mind, the committee will push back the date of the full optoelectronic integration on a single die, a major milestone, until next year’s second quarter.

"The advantages of Poet [Planar Opto Electronic Technology] are power and speed,” said board director Geoff Taylor. “What Poet allows you to do is take a lot of the functions that are currently produced in hybrid solutions that require a lot of assembly and put those together into a single package which has multiple functions in an integrated format.”

The technology’s applications are broad, ranging from mobile devices to infra-red sensors in fighter jets, in four primary areas: data processing, optoelectronic; memory and storage and sensors.

So far Poet has 37 patents and seven others are waiting approval, as it transitions from a research-oriented company to a developmental stage firm.

“We are much further along in the commercial process than anyone coming out of a lab,” Copetti said.

While this technology brims with potential, Poet’s old solar business depleted funds. The company under Copetti’s watch wrote down the latter’s assets to zero. Hence the new name in July.

“The Opel [Technologies] name has a lot of connotations to the legacy solar stuff,” Copetti said. “I wanted it gone. I wanted to put the Poet technology front and centre.”

Poet put solar in the past last December and climbed back from the brink of bankruptcy to raise about $8.5 million since last June. It has a burn rate of approximately $300,000 a month and sees a deal coming through before it needs to go back to the market.

“We’re not asking for huge amounts of money from anybody to get this done. We don’t need that,” Copetti said. “I don’t think it’s much time before a much bigger player comes along and says to us ‘We want this and we don’t want anyone else to have it.’”

Most shareholders are Canadian, but Poet is starting to garner attention south of the border. The stock, which has surged 70% over the past year, is heavily held by institutional investors, with 38% of shares controlled by three firms.

http://www.proactiveinvestors.com/companies/news/47366/poet-technologies-propels-forward-with-new-wave-of-chip-technology-47366.html