Kath asked: Do you think there is just doubt out there about this technology, as far as investors believing that Poet's technology can really do what it says it can? Is this starting to change? Will the OFC demonstrations make headway on removing doubt? Is there a tipping point whereby people begin to recognize Poet's tech is for real (and they start piling into the stock)? Thoughts?

Hi Kath…interesting questions. For me personally I had always wondered how POET would achieve industry leading coupling efficiencies in a passive alignment flip chip mass reflow process. I have never before seen this achieved and indeed scholarly articles on the  subject of flip chip technologies report  on the  availability of  accurate  placement and mass  reflow for electronic flip  chips but these processes do not meet the  level of  accuracy  required for optical connections to optical chips. I have talked about this in the past when reviewing what we knew of the process from the patents.

So POET really has achieved a first. True wafer level production that exceeds the existing high cost active alignment steps currently used.

The combination of very accurate spot size converters and highly accurate mating structures utilizing the POET optical interposer dielectric stack to produce a new benchmark of optical integration efficiency. The LEGO set is ready to build new generations of multiple products. And it is not just about achieving superior alignment in a high throughput automated process is also an architecture that simultaneously provides superior thermal management in an already athermal platform.   

Some history that really points to the technical successes and level of execution that has taken place:

In the 2020 AGM presentation under the Looking Forward heading (a forecast into the future) we see the following:   

2020 Q4…New flip chip laser architecture for high accuracy passive alignment proven for product implementation.

On Dec 3, 2020 POET announced the first multi-wafer mask set  for production which  enables multiple products, including custom designs for specific applications and customers.

New features announced previously and now incorporated into the Optical Interposer enhance critical performance, manufacturability and versatility of the platform. To improve the overall performance of the Optical Interposer in transmitting light without significant losses, POET produced waveguide designs that minimized or eliminated reflections of light at the interface of the laser and the waveguide, a problem that is common in photonic device integration. In addition, the Company incorporated several features that minimize losses as light travels through the device, including its latest generation of Mach-Zehnder Interferometry (“MZI”)-based multiplexers, which reduce the loss of signal from this device to less than 20% (<1.0 dB), believed to be industry-leading performance for this type of device. Improved spot-size converters, able to match different diameters (modes) of light beams (for more efficient coupling between devices), were implemented with losses of less than 10% (<0.5 dB), far exceeding best-in-class.  To connect efficiently to off-the-shelf components, such as top-entry photodetectors and vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs), POET incorporated improved vertical mirrors into the Optical Interposer, expanding the overall versatility of the platform.  The Company designed unique fiber-attach-units (FAUs) with matching passive alignment structures on the Optical Interposer that facilitates alignment while providing a low-loss attachment of POET’s optical engines in customers’ transceivers.

Finally, new designs of fiducials on both the Optical Interposer and POET designed lasers better enable sub-micron accuracy for mechanical pick-and-place assembly of components.

Vivek… "We have proven out all of the features and production methods for the platform itself, including the flip-chip assembly and bonding steps for lasers, which has historically been the Achilles' heel for other approaches to optoelectronic integration.

Then two weeks later POET announces:

POET ANNOUNCES INDUSTRY-FIRST FLIP-CHIP DML LASERS

Poet Technologies Inc. has completed and tested its high-speed directly modulated laser designs using a distributed feedback (DFB) structure and successfully "flip-chipped" these lasers onto the company's Optical Interposer platform, which also incorporates several other industry-first accomplishments.

The flip-chip assembly technique enables a true single-chip, fully integrated optical engine to be produced at wafer-scale, resulting in the lowest-cost, smallest-size 100G CWDM4 optical engine with a form factor of nine millimetres by six millimetres, while including banks of four lasers, four monitor photodiodes, four high-speed photodiodes, a multiplexer, demultiplexer, taps for power monitoring and features supporting a self-aligned fibre attach unit.

So to answer the rest of your question Kath.  I do believe  that in terms of  investor recognition  I do believe the OFC demonstrations  will  provide  that tipping point where investors get  to see  firsthand how ground breaking the  POET platform is.  I  think  this company  is about to take center  stage at OFC. Industry needs  for cost, performance  and the  ability to  satisfy volume needs at 10% of the CAPEX required by existing systems I think will leave the  competition speechless.