Re: There is real hope.
posted on
Nov 20, 2014 04:51PM
For obvious reasons it is essential for POET Technologies to be on the market fast.
The first step is to release the 40 nm PET PDK to chip developers so that they can actually start developing chips. The availablility of the PDK can be announced anytime now, preferrably not only by POET Technologies, but also by Synopsys. Even more preferrably the company would also announce the first PDK users, i.e. companies starting to deploy the PDK, starting to actually develop chip designs. Remember the PDK announced for this quarter is a PET (not POET) PDK, and it is only a version 1.0. Version 2.0 with additional capabilities is planned for 2015.
The second step (which goes in parallel to the first step) is to enable fabs to execute the POET process so that fabs could take what the chip developers have developed as software models and manufacture that in hardware and in mass production.
Yesterday we have discussed how long it will take to get a chip to the market eventually. Not a software model, but something "real", something in hardware, something which would go into a gadget you would be able to buy.
It will be important for POET as well as for POET's customers to have quick results, to harvest low-hanging fruits. How long will it take until we'll see a real chip? 1 year? 3 to 5 years? It depends on the complexity of the respective design!
If chip developer A starts to develop a microprocessor while B starts to work on, say, an optical chip-to-chip interconnect, B will finish his task much earlier than A. In fact, I believe A would try something simple first in order to gain experience (and to not risk as much development costs). Upon success A would approach the very complex microprocessor design.
I think it is no coincidence that the corporate presentation stresses that optical chip-to-chip interconnect idea as a value proposition for data centers (page 14). Chip-to-chip interconnects offer a huge potential for costs savings through POET!
By the way, the word "processor" occurs in the corporate presentation twice, while "interconnect" occurs four times. Oh, and yet another word is mentioned even six times: "memory". Did you noticed memory being on the technical milestone list for 2015? It is there as "SRAM structure".