14 January 2021 - Needham Conference

When can shareholders expect orders for the 100G and 200G optical engines and for the 400G light engine?

[SV, 33:03] Vivek, do you want to take that one?

[VR, 33;06] Yeah. As we showed in our roadmap we’re going through completing the design—we’ll have samples this quarter. And then take it to a final design, which we call beta, which gets reliability qualification. We have been working with a lead customer, already, who we’re actively engaged (with us). So once the product is available, and qualified, it will go into production. It’s really Q3 when we expect to see revenue from these products. And 400G will follow... you know it’s a platform. We can use these similar type of methodologies and assembly techniques. We are looking at, and qualifying, the right devices for the higher speed and then that will go, subsequently, into manufacturing and revenue.

[SV, 34:05] I think it’s important to understand that the 100G product is equally capable of doing 200G, the difference is in the signaling rate: one is a NRZ signaling; the other is PAM4. That active devices we are using in our 100G products are capable of 200G using PAM4 signaling, so the same optical engine is capable of both 100 and 200 with minor changes to the design, which we’ve incorporated as part of our platform. So when we talk about qualifying 100G we’re simultaneously, in a sense, qualifying 200G. 2 X 200 is a form factor that a lot of customers do use for the 400G space, prior to straight up deployment to 400G. So we think that is an important development. We’re being deliberate about doing it right, such that it can scale and we’re using our lead customer in driving that development for us right now.

[TM, 35:05] I would also add that in the kind of agreements we are in now for product development, most often those agreements include supply agreements. So we have already, in some cases, said at certain volumes here’s what the price is going to be for the completed device and typically what happens is that if you meet the qualification then you’re designed-in and the revenue will be dependent on how successful is in introducing that product into the market. Typically, we wouldn’t get an idea of what those volumes would be until very late in the process.

Cheers