Does anyone for even a minute think that Suresh could not cherry pick just about any job he wanted in the industry? Why is he hanging his hat on POET? It is because he believes that he is building a special company with disruptive potential that will be realized. That is why I think most of us are here.

Perhaps more important than the physical manufacturing capability is the technical knowhow, especially considering POET’s development stage. We believe POET has the technological wherewithal to deliver to its stated goals based on the combination of professional talent and physical assets. Specifically, leading POET is CEO Suresh Venkatesan, who has invaluable experience garnered in leading GLOBALFOUNDRIES’, a greater than $4 billion company, technology and research department. Venkatesan holds more than 20 U.S. patents and has co-authored more than 40 technical papers apart from managing the technical development of one of the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturers. Perhaps most important to POET’s future is Venkatesan’s experience driving integration. Device integration is the heart of POET’s value proposition, and relevant experience integrating functionality is critical to delivering to the company’s expressed targets. GLOBALFOUNDRIES manufactures semiconductors for the likes of Qualcomm, Broadcom, AMD, and STMicroelectronics, all leading semiconductor design and manufacturing companies. Each of these companies had its own manufacturing and development agenda, but assuredly, an integral aspect of the agenda at each included integrating an assortment of logic functionality. The responsibility for driving technology adoption fell on Venkatesan, and at a much greater manufacturing scale in concert with GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ $4 billion revenue level as compared with POET’s current situation. Supporting Venkatesan’s  effort is Bill Ring, the past CEO and President of BB Photonics, where the development of arrayed waveguide gratings (AWG), also known as an optical phased array, forms the mux/de-mux function of POET’s hybrid integrated optical engine. Ring has an impressive semiconductor related resume of its own right, and built an operable mux/de-mux in dielectric material expected to simplify the integration process, as previously explained.