Since introducing the optical interposer based on the dielectric waveguide technology at the end of Jan they have moved pretty quickly to ready the platform for volume production. They now have a very significant R&D/design and fabrication workforce and continue to expand the applications which appear to be driven by very large customer request.

With the introduction of the optical interposer they announced “Consistent with prior expectations, the company continues to work toward providing engineering samples of a receive optical engine to customers by the middle of 2018. This device will be fabricated leveraging Poet's optical interposer platform.”

In just over a month (March 5) after that announcement they established a co-development partnership with Accelink a very large company with the capabilities required to qualify POET’s optical engines for commercial production in order to supply Accelink’s customer needs. This did not involve a technology transfer and was not exclusive. One month later POET established a partnership with SilTerra to develop and manufacture the optical interposer in their Malaysia 8 inch silicon wafer foundry which required the installation of low temperature deposition equipment required for the dielectric.  The technology was transferred and the line was commissioned as announced at the AGM. Recognize the commitment that SilTerra made to expand their facility for the dielectric production. Clearly they were convinced as to the  commercial viability of the interposer and we can surmise that this  determination was based on engineering samples of the ROE. In other words they recognized that the dielectric platform was a breakthrough technology. People will recall when portable radio’s changed from bricks to slender solid state devices. POET has managed to remove the freespace optics in photonic devices to become highly efficient mass produced solid state optical engines.

It does not surprise me to see the interest that industry has to commercialize this  breakthrough and this small company is  making the right moves and talking with the right people to advance this platform as quickly as possible.

Dr. Suresh Venkatesan, Poet's chief executive officer, commented: "We are very pleased to establish a framework for collaboration with Almae, a leading European supplier of high-performance EML lasers based on a novel buried heterostructure design and an advanced PIC fabrication platform. in the shortest possible time using the best technologies available.  

And let’s have a look at the leading competition that is listed on the new presentation.

This is a company I have talked about in the past. Kaiam… their moto is “Density is our destiny”. Click on the video to see one of the most advanced processes used today and then consider POETs solid state photonic platform with very low insertion loss in a CMOS fabrication flow at a fraction of the cost.   

http://kaiam.com/?page_id=6753