Some history for those who truly want to understand. Some history for those who truly want to understand the importance of what POET has been doing.
Suresh developed a fundamentally new concept which began in 2018 and introduced the Optical Interposer to the world. Today everyone uses it and claims the term as their own. It took 4 years to develop the technology including establishing a prototyping line in Singapore (paid for by NUS) and a manufacturing line in China (paid for by Sanan) – neither of which took cash out of the company.
From 2018 to 2021 - POET funded the company through the sale of DLS - which even today people regard as an accomplishment.
They developed on a shoestring budget all of the technology fundamentals and principles - each man in the company wearing multiple hats to get this done.
For the first time in the history of this company, POET is demonstrating solutions that are relevant to the biggest players in the industry and the opportunities uncovered are mind-boggling. They were ahead of even Coherent at the conference in developing and demonstrating 200G/lane solutions - all done in the past 5 months. Few players demonstrated this capability.
Our one failure and miss was the unavailability of the Tx solution for 400/800G - till now. Despite all of all the accomplishments - this was the one that has hurt the company the most. They put their faith in SiPho ahead of its time in 2021/2022 and then turned to DML with Lumentum in 2023. In retrospect, this was the wrong choice and they should have ridden the EML horse a lot sooner. It was the most accepted and adopted component and it should have been made the basis of the solution. Anyway, they corrected that in Q4 last year and now they have solutions in record time for both 800G and 1.6T with EMLs. The ease with which this solution has come up has not only enabled them to make the elusive 800G module solutions but also put POET at the forefront of technology.
To make the EML lasers compatible required the reinvention of the interposer architecture and they achieved first pass success. Which clearly demonstrates the flexibility of the interposer. It is hard to say whether the learnings of the past two years were what allowed for first pass success. Suresh cannot afford to bemoan past failures but can only look forward from here.
The industry is in an era of unprecedented customer concentration at the top. A few companies dictate the fate of the industry. It has become a winner take all industry in a very short span of time. Finally - POET is beginning to be relevant in that conversation.
They have had some short time angst with financing (resolved) and share price, but the future is bright and they are very focused on the positives.
It has taken a longer time than even Suresh had anticipated for the market to understand what an optical interposer can do for them - but now suddenly it is "the way it has to be". New technologies take some time to develop and evolve. And they require much more capital than Suresh has had access to at POET. I think people can see how much money other companies raise to create their solutions and compare that to what POET has had to play with.
Bottom line here folks. POET is cashed up and that big ball and chain has been removed.
The opportunities uncovered are mind-boggling