Could someone on the board explain why the "Sputter Tool" at UConn is so significant to accomplishing the next two milestones (that is; 100-nm ring Oscilator and 50 GHz VCSEL)? I don't quite follow the relationship. It was my understanding that we had a joint collaboration going on with a "3rd Party foundry" and infact, I was under the impression that it was this foundry that would be completing these milestones under the guidance of Poet (Taylor et al). Are all prototypes created by Poet at UCONN then shipped off to the 3rd party foundry? Was the Sputter tool absolutely crucial to the completion of the final two milestones? Could it not have been done with the existing equipment and/or the foundry's equipment? Are we 3 months behind or could it be much less? I am just wanting to get a better understanding of how, technically, this miss could occur. Thanks very much for the feedback.

From Feb 10th;

Completion of Milestone - "3rd Party Foundry" 40/100-nm Transfer

The Company completed its "3rd Party Foundry" 40/100-nm transfer milestone consisting of completing the critical layers of the Transistor Fabrication Process. This flow process will allow the Company to generate more complex prototypes and test structures. As the POET process node size shrinks, this facilitates new industry innovations and furthers development work. This new epitaxial flow process includes new innovations in the POET prototype fabrication process. These innovations were necessary to continue the optimization work of the 100 and 40-nm foundation devices of our technology.

Dan DeSimone, Chief Technical Officer noted: "This is a significant step for our "lab-to-fab" transition where this new flow at our "3rd Party Foundry" accelerates and adds repeatability and quality to our manufacturing process necessary for our next two significant milestones expected at the end of Q1: a 100-nm ring oscillator and a 50 GHz VCSEL."

And from Jan 8th, 2015

"Lab-to-Fab" Transition: 100-nm and 40-nm Scaling Program Update

POET recently reported a contractual effort with a "3rd party foundry" to accelerate the transition from "Lab-to-Fab" of the POET technology to a manufacturing status at the 6" wafer scale. Significant progress has been made towards transfer of critical manufacturing steps to the "3rd 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 towards optimization of the self-aligned contacts for the HFET transistors, as well as on optimization of the vertical structure of the devices. Mr. 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