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Jan 09, 2015 01:27PM
I have read this several times as have we all and it's 100% positive. They have told us so much here that it is easy to miss much of it on the first read. If this doesn't give POET a great big vote of confidence here than nothing will. It's just a matter of time and, for some, just being able to hang in there at least until we get our new CEO which,I think, will get ball rolling. You can be sure when that ball starts to roll it will be like a snowball running down hill.
"Poet enters 2015 in excellent financial shape,"
cash balance of approximately $12.5-million, a 350-per-cent increase from a year earlier.
This is our strongest cash position as a company and will allow us to take advantage of opportunities in the following year to maximize shareholder value."
In December, 2014, the company also signed a new lease extension with the University of Connecticut (UConn) for a one-year period which was prepaid at a significant discount. The new lease includes a possible further two-year extension and provides the company the flexibility to transition from lab to fab.
our transition from lab to fab has begun with many industry non-disclosure agreement discussions that have been initiated through the work of Mr. Ajit Manocha,
Some of our milestones have had to evolve during 2014 because of industry relationship considerations and priorities. These evolving changes have made the updated milestones more significant to the market place.
We enter 2015 with financial stability, significant industry relationships and milestones relevant to the industry collaborators.
excellent position to monetize our process technology."
Poet recently reported we are in an a contractual effort with a third party foundry to accelerate the transition from lab to fab of the Poet technology to a manufacturing status at the six-inch wafer scale.
Significant progress has been made toward transfer of critical manufacturing steps to the third party foundry. This flow will both accelerate and improve quality of results for prototype fabrication and test supporting process flow and design enablement kit development.
Efforts in the lab have been geared toward optimization of the self-aligned contacts for the HFET transistors, as well as on optimization of the vertical structure of the devices.
Daniel DeSimone, chief technology officer, noted: "We have seen positive improvement in the key figures of merit we test for in our devices. We see further possible improvements and are continuing to work on device and process flow to achieve the highest possible performance."
In a parallel development at the UConn lab, a new additional sputter tool was received and accepted. The tool is nearing completion of internal qualification. Deployment of the new tool will drastically reduce prototype fabrication cycle times as well as improve the quality and process control of key films used in the process flow. These will be critical not only to current development, but also necessary for transfer to eventual manufacturing stages.
Milestone updates
PET Foundation Process Design Kit (PDK) targeting 40 nm
Sentaurus modelling (a Synopsys tool) has been performed with new fabrication innovations to achieve controlled scaled device operation. These modelling predictions are guiding and confirming the device prototype development and testing. The PDK milestone has been moved to first quarter 2015 so that the release incorporates the latest innovations currently being developed in the UConn Lab and in parallel with the third party foundry.
Lab-to-fab transition: 100-nanometre and 40 nm scaling program update
This lab-to-fab effort requires bringing up critical layers manufacturing capability in the company's third party foundry which enables more complex test structures. Significant progress has been achieved toward the completion of this milestone. The company is very close to completing qualification runs for the flow in which the critical layers are performed at the company's third party foundry. This new flow will significantly accelerate completion and optimization of development on 100 and 40 nm foundation devices and associated proof-of-concept optical and electronic circuit structures.
CEO search update
Poet recently announced that Ajit Manocha, co-chairman, had been appointed to the corporate governance and nominating committee, subject to board approval, with the mandate to identify and consider candidates for the permanent chief executive officer role. Mr. Manocha noted: "Several high-quality candidates are being considered. We hope in the near term to identify Poet's permanent CEO who will continue the process technology development and help us close key industry partnership deals. We look forward to identifying the right successor."
In addition, over the next few months, the company intends to add directors, key executives and operational staff focusing on increasing Poet's presence in the United States.