Tannersfriend: I guess ANAD is one of these partners able to deligate some of the 40 technicians to a POET project... It seems that - at the moment - they have no cash to spend some Millions for NRE.

I am pretty sure they have closed a deal that is advantageous for both parties in one or the other way. For example, they could have waived the NRE (good for Anadigics) and agreed on rather low (pre-)production costs (good for POET). They could have agreed on some kind of lighweight joint venture where both partners share the risks and share the profits. This would avoid high upfront costs, have both partners investing more manpower than money, and be fully in line with Ajit's Fab 2.0 vision. (It could even prolongate the stealth period.)

True, with such an agreement in place, both companies would lack initial revenue, but on the flip side they would both improve their market positions considerably: POET would demonstrate that their VCSELs are superior, Anadigics would demonstrate that they can manufacture them at reasonable costs.

That was the worst-case scenario. In the best-case scenario they already have a customer who has ordered VCSELs with certain specifications in quantites.

Disclaimer: These scenarios are just speculations off the top of my head. I don't have any secret revelations from POET, from Anadigics, from any potential customer or from anyone else.

(I changed the subject to correct the spelling of VCSEL.)