Hey MC,

I won't comment on everything in the list unless pressed to do so. I do recall a big deal being made of the annealing, which is done to repair the crystal lattice after ion implantation. My understanding is that once the dopant atom is "fired" into the wafer to the desired depth it is necessary to subject the wafer to an annealling process so that the layers affected by the passing particle can be returned to their perfect lattice.

This takes time, but so does everything. The bottom line is that annealing is a common step in existing IC manufacture. It's not an added step that sets POET apart from other IC manufacturing processes.

Remember: POET is great because of the reduced SWaP and orders of magnitude increase in performance. But what is really remarkable is that the process is compatible with current manufacturing methods. If what we've been shown is correct (and they have opened their facility to shareholders twice for close scrutiny), then existing fabs will not require a massive retrofit to begin producing POET chips.

What will take time is developing the design rules to accurately produce POET chips in each facility. It was explained to me that each fab has it's own little quirks (even when built with the same equipment end-to-end) and it takes test runs to refine the design rules. once the design rules are set, a company can bring their "recipe" for their chip and a fab can make a chip containing POET devices configured to meet the requirements of the customer. Much of the work at BAE is taking the design rules from UConn and making them work on BAE equipment. Once that's done to BAE's satisfaction they can begin to make all sorts of chips and sensors.

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NOTE: The annealing process really might be an important reason POET is special. I recall Taylor making a comment at the 2012 lab tour that no-one would dare subject a laser to such a high temperature anneal as they do with POET. The laser used in POET is so unique that other expers in the industry would have to have it pointed out to them by Taylor to even recognize it as a laser. So whatever it is that makes the POET laser special, it allows it to be subjected to the necessary annealing temperature that permits monolithic integration of the electronic components with the optical components in the same en-to-end process.

Magic.