I guess ST is right.
For sure the UCONN team had delays caused by this hardware issue. But: As far as I know the VCSEL and the RI were 100 and 40nm structures. Didn't POET plan to build these in their 3rd pary fab due to the fact that their equipment these was much better?
PC at the CIC would not have been that optimistig knowing that there is a hardware problem delaying all milestones another 2-3 month...