Hi jrubinst,

I'm going to try to give a response to the points you raised.

"1. They are unaware and POET is below the radar. . . ."

According to Lee Shepherd, this is actually the situation. Despite early claims by the company when Pierhal was doing virtually all the talking, that "everybody knows", the evidence seems to point the other way.

While I agree the information is out there for all to see, the problem is that it's just swamped amongst other similar-sounding achievements by other academics. Also consider that the academics and engineers at Intel and IBM have something to gain by keeping these developments under wraps. I'm usually not a conspiracy theorist type, but I couldn't imagine myself as an IBM R&D employee going to the guys with the money and telling them that a company with 15 employees has just undermined a decade of photonics research.

"2. They have billions invested in their own research for the next Moore's law chip (IBM and graphene for example) and want to protect that. All the more reason to buy the company cheaply - or for a second tier company to partner with OPEL to leapfrog over the competition. I have been invested in this company for over two years and despite hints along the way, this has not happened."

Lets just assume that the IBMs of the world really are fully apprised about POET's potential. It's still in development and Dr. Taylor's team could make it more difficult for IBM to complete the research hostile takeover strategy was implemented. Granted IBM would have hundreds of engineers to throw at the problem, but why have a problem at all if Taylor can complete the work without a fight?

Dr. Taylor seems to think a lack of exposure is the reason nobody has made a bid (@2012 AGM) and he thinks it's plausible that we might see bidders arrive on the scene when the CW laser and the complementary logic is completed - i.e., anytime now.

(***note: graphene as a semi material is decades away from practical use.Very fundamental barriers currently exist which prevent it from being a serious contender. I personally think articles like today’s will be published with GaAs as the incumbent semi material trying to laugh of advances in graphene – which they will eventually lose)

"3. They feel the technology is not scalable to a commercial level - at an acceptable cost."

This would be impossible to determine without the whitepaper that they are currently disseminating. But you are correct that they might not take the risk if they mistakenly believed that POET required massive retrofits on existing infrastructure.

In fact, I've been in touch with a relative who was a higher-up engineer at Intel during their rise. His good friend on the board of directors at Luxtera said that OPEL "wasn't even on their radar" and that POET wouldn't be cost effective because nobody was going to spend $2B-$3B on a fab to make chips with GaAs. He didn't know that POET could be used at existing fabs.

"4. Availability of enough Gallium arsenide for massive commercial production at a reasonable cost."

and

"5. Possible environmental and safety concerns regarding the handling and eventual disposition of the millions of devices containing gallium arsenide."

Half of the Gallium Arsenide used for electronics in the US comes from scrap Gallium Arsenide. Also, GaAs is fully recyclable. This means that obsolete GaAs chips can be collected and used again in the process to make updated chips.

Also, from today's article and from Lee's Toronto presentation we learned that the many chips in mobile devices could be replaced with a single POET GaAs chip. In many ways the possible environmental risks posed by GaAs are mitigated by the reduced processing required to make numerous chips.

Another thing to consider along with my last point is that the number of GaAs chips will not increase as a result of POET adoption. all that would happen is that the functionality of the whole device will be moved onto that single GaAs chip.

I think better recycling efforts should be in place even now with the industry in it's current state, let alone when GaAs becomes the semiconductor material of choice. Hopefully countries can streamline the retrieval process and recycle more of the obsolete chips than they do currently.

Lastly, to address the supply of GaAs in the event that demand increases drastically, there are a couple of options. First of all, Gallium is processed first from aluminium and zinc mining. There are very few virgin gallium producers in the US currently, Gold Canyon (GCU.v) owns the rights to mine a Gallium deposit. I think the cost of Gallium is currently too low to justify their project, but if the price was to rise as a result of POET adoption I think GCU would take another look.

So in the end, neither the environmental hazards associated with GaAs nor the sudden demand should be a problem. GaAs will not replace Si overnight.