Jun 29 2013
OPEL Technologies Inc. (“OPEL” or “the Company”) announces that it has achieved Milestone 6 in its development roadmap of the proprietary planar optoelectronic technology (POET) platform for monolithic fabrication of integrated electronic and optical devices on a single semiconductor wafer, a next-generation alternative to silicon complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology..
The new milestone is the integration of the complementary inverter, the basis for all on-chip logic. Specifically, OPEL successfully demonstrated complementary heterostructure field effect transistor (HFET) based inverter operation using the POET process.
Mr. Peter Copetti, Executive Director of OPEL, and Chair of the Special Strategic Committee (SSC) for commercialization of the POET platform, noted: “The SSC deemed Milestone 6 to be critical for our commercialization activities, and staff focused on this milestone. That we achieved Milestone 6 so quickly spotlights the caliber of the POET team, and our ability to execute and to pivot to industry needs.” Mr. Copetti added: “Due to ongoing needs of the SSC, other pre-determined milestones and dates may have to change without notice – but any changes will be consistent with our commercialization mandate.”
The achievement of Milestone 6 obviates the need for Milestone 5 (3/4 terminal switching laser, Q2-2013). Milestone 6 was originally scheduled for Q3-2013, and its achievement in Q2 puts OPEL ahead of its targeted development milestones.
“To serve the digital marketplace currently dominated by CMOS, complementary functions in GaAs/InGaAs are essential,” said Dr. Geoffrey Taylor, Chief Scientist. “With this milestone, this functionality has been demonstrated on a POET device.”
The OPEL lab demonstrated both nHFETs and pHFETs, with symmetrical positive thresholds, as an integrated circuit with thresholds of +/- 0.5V and VD=2V for 1um gates. Going forward, logic circuits will be integrated with in-plane lasers and detectors with the goal of reducing linewidths towards CMOS state-of-art circuits. Coupled with achievement of its previous milestones – including demonstration of the vertical cavity laser – POET extends the capability of its unique monolithic platform.
Mr. Leon Pierhal, President and Chief Executive Office of OPEL, added: “We are extremely proud of this achievement. This further underlines the capacity that POET has to be a disruptive technology, able to address current and future challenges facing the semiconductor industry, and provides the SSC with further momentum for its initiatives.”
By enabling increased speed, density, reliability, power efficiency, and much lower bill-of-materials and assembly costs, POET provides a new technology direction and opportunity for the semiconductor industry.
POET will allow continued advances of semiconductor device performance and capabilities for many years, overcoming the current power and speed bottlenecks of silicon-based circuits, and will change the future development roadmaps of a broad range of semiconductor applications including mobile and wearable devices, computer servers, storage arrays, imaging equipment, and networking equipment.