With all due respect Rick, silicon by itself is inexpensive compared to GaA by itself. What is happening in the industry is figuring out methods of adhering different metal compounds onto silicon to give it similar performance characteristics to GaA, GaN, indium and so on. These processes are not inexpensive to figure out. New techniques and technologies have been and are continuing to be developed to squeeze the very last drops of performance out of silicon. I really don't feel like getting into this much further because it is moot. But I'll leave you with this. The development costs projected for the next node shrinkage for silicon is massive. It's not about the material alone. The economics of furthering chip development and performance vs increasing costs and inject a healthy dose of the law of deminishing returns, is setting up a perfect time for change. Here is a good article about that. http://www.extremetech.com/computing/184946-14nm-7nm-5nm-how-low-can-cmos-go-it-depends-if-you-ask-the-engineers-or-the-economists It is too simplistic to say silicon is cheaper. There are challenges with each change of material, size, performance and many others. What POET allows is an opportunity to re-employ older equipment in fabs that otherwise were to be trashed. This could save literally billions for the industry at large. It allows monolithic integration which as FJ noted from an old white paper the cost difference of $15 compared to $200. Those are old numbers. The industry changes so fast we really won't know just what the saving are and what the performance is until the product is ready for market. So until the competitors emerge from the shadows to allow for a reasonable comparison of costs and performance, one must also ask, what are the metrics being used to determine a given cost/performance characteristic? There are lots of moving parts and simple statements do not afford the complexities involved justice. I guess in the future add IMHO, because until numbers are published that's all it really can be. Take care. Respectfully Derekwpg