Please don't get mistaken in-between the different products that POET is rolling-out. The lightbar, the interposer platform, the optical engine, etc, these are NOT all the same and single product. 

I do acknowledge that maybe except a rare few posters that we are all out of our depth when it come to the technology.

But POET's execuvites have done a great job to explain what product they are rolling out and for what purpose... 

When Broadcom discusses their network switches the potential (speculation here) matching product is the Poet's lightbar not the optical engine or the interposer platform.

Disclocure, below is an abstract of the lighbar transcript, please re-read it as a whole to understand the meaning of a specific word in its whole context. Your own interpretation is as good as mine...

Todays press release: “Poet launches lightbar solution for data centers.”

[3:24 Agoracom] Gentlemen welcome to the show. Thanks for being here today to discuss this. Gents this is an advanced remote laser light source for transceivers and data center switches. Vivek let’s start with you, alright. Why is a remote laser source useful, and who will use it?

[3:44, Vivek R] So yeah, George, as we have seen the growth of data traffic with video streaming, mobile connectivity, remote users and what not. The cloud companies that manage the movement of the data, have to transmit a lot of data within their data centers. So, in order to do that, what is happening is the switch, which is the switch ASIC, is expanding in capacity… doubling every two years. So, a year ago we had switches that were 12.5Tb/sec. Now we are seeing 25Tb/sec, and in a couple of years it will go to 50Tb/sec. So, in order to make this data move those switches need to be connected to an optical module. And with the growth of capacity of these switches it is very difficult to manage what we call the electrical power consumption between the switch ASIC and that optical module. That has to become shorter and shorter with this growth of capacity.

[4:55] So now what we are reaching is where the optical module actually has to be packaged alongside with the switch ASIC -- what we call co-packaged optics. And, in order to do that, you need what is called a chiplet. Now the light that is used to transmit the data, the optical connectivity, is the most sensitive to heat. And these switch ASICS and other silicon that goes with it, and with increased capacity, generates a lot of heat.

[Agoracom] So there’s a need for more power but that comes with those kinds of problems now.

[5:37, Vivek R.] Yeah… Well, it’s needs, but you’re actually generating because you are increasing the capacity. And the laser is the most sensitive to heat. So, what our remote laser, this Lightbar, does is provides a remote laser source so you can separate or remotely power up, optically power up, these chiplets so that it does not get impacted by the heat. Also, lasers are the least reliable element or chip in the system. So, by having a remote laser source, if something happens to the laser, you don’t have to open the entire system to rectify it. You can change that remote laser source, the Lightbar. So, we see a tremendous value of this Lightbar in the growth of optical systems in the data center.

[6:30, Agoracom] It’s amazing how we all take, even this, this zoom call for granted. It’s going to be recorded to the cloud and then is going to be downloaded onto Youtube for everyone to watch. So, the amount of data that is being pushed is unbelievable. And you all wouldn’t believe how important Poet is in that process. Vivek who are potential customers of Lightbar?

[6:58, Vivek R.] So the supply chain partners of these cloud companies, the optical system companies that make these switches and routers. So, they will use our remote laser when they put the optical connection in their switches. As well as their supply chain partners, who are the module integrators or optical module providers, will also be customers of our remote lasers.

[Agoracom] So a lot of little component people inside the box at the end of the day. How big is that market? It has to be massive.

[7:32, Vivek R.] Yeah. As we talked about the switch capacity is expanding or doubling every two years. And these data centers are growing like… tremendous growth in the data centers. The large cloud companies are building data centers every month they are increasing their systems.

[7:53] So the markets that… leading market research companies like Lightcounting are determining is called “400 Gigabit”, where our remote laser source Lightbar can be used, is going from $0.5 billion of market size, the addressable market that we will play in, next year, to more than $3 billion in 2025, over 4 years. And the co-packaged optics that I talked about will start in say 2022..2023 timeframe, and will grow to about $4 billion market size by 2028. So tremendous opportunity for us to play in the market here.

It is a strech I know that the remote laser solution that Broadcom intend to use for their switches will be the POET's lightbar but yet the timing of all these release, the timeline of both companies and the wording utilized does give me hope that the endorsing networking american customer that Vivek referenced as one of the factor why he joined Poet could be them...

My opinion 

Do your DD