Junkers87: The problem is that POET has not been very good at explaining what the PET and POET chips are all about up to this point anyway... Stealth,, blackout,, or whatever...It is not hard to see why people have no idea about the chip.. Hopefully that will soon change..
I occurred to me recently that some uncertainty could result from the difference between analog and digital technology. Essentially digital technology (CMOS) is limited by the mobility of holes while analog semiconductor technology is limited by the mobility of electrons. The latter is much higher than the former and you should pay attention in order to not compare apples with oranges.
Unfortunately POET Technologies' communication does also not clearly distinguishes between the two technologies, possibly because on their level a digital device is only a configuration of a couple of analog devices. The EE Times article cites Geoff Taylor with such an unclear statement (emphasis by me):
"Silicon digital logic hits the wall at 4 GHz, but we can produce small gallium arsenide [GaAs] analog circuits switching at 100 GHz today and 400 GHz in the not too distant future," he tells EE Times.On first look, it seems that Geoff is comparing digital apples with analog oranges here. But since he is the brilliant mind and not me, what he said might still make sense. My interpretation is that Geoff is saying here something like this: "Look, since silicon CMOS dissipates so much heat, its clock speed has to be limited at 4 GHz or lower in order not to melt the chips. However, GaAs consumes much less power and consequently produces much less heat so that we can use higher clock speeds. We can build digital components like inverters from GaAs-based analog components called cHFET transistors. Our n-channel transistors can switch as fast as 100 to 400 GHz, but in this statement I won't tell you about p-channel transistor frequncies."
This is my interpretation, and it might well be wrong or imprecise, especially regarding the last sentence. I would like corporate communication to not require interpretation and reading between the lines. It should target the average investor, should be clear and precise and should assume the reader is not an expert in semiconductor technology.