Derfickum you are not out of line asking that question in the least and even though this is probably the most well versed group of people in terms of basic understanding of the POET platform technology it could be a lot better.  

The concept of the POET OI platform is fundamentally a total departure from silicon photonics where people have been trying to achieve some level of zero change to integrate photonics directly on silicon. And there have been significant successes given the decades of work and expense that have gone into the various approaches industry has taken. There is yet to be a winner with the space being widely shared by different approaches. But it is becoming more apparent as time goes on that making a significant bet on one approach can lead to failure as industry will eventually find a platform that will have the advantages of cost, performance and data density that is highly scalable with capacity for multiple protocols leading to higher data rates.

With regard to the above it should be noted that the POET OI is compatible with silicon photonics to allow for efficient light generation, insertion and filtering)

Trying to produce the optical gain necessary for light generation is very difficult to achieve in silicon and attempting to control the wavelength as a result of temperature deviation across the silicon where filtering takes place is extremely difficult within the energy budget.

Suresh’s extensive experience dealing with silicon and the efforts to do mixed signal, RF on a common silicon die without even considering optical integration is very difficult and has led to an approach to use disaggregation utilizing hybrid platforms that are currently leading the semiconductor market with various 3d and 2.5d architectures specifically required for leading mobility applications.

I am not the person to explain this Suresh is. When I review the conference call that was held at IBK a few weeks ago it provides an excellent overview of the POET OI platform approach. Hint hint something similar in a video  tutorial would rally help investors understand the concept. The disaggregation approach allows the best material sets for each function including light detection, generation and filtering to be achieved separately then combined with the lowest optical loss achieved based on the best material set optimized for each application. It allows mixing and matching the best of both worlds. As well as producing the lowest possible costs.

In the IBK conference call  you will hear a reference made to providing POET customers with a disruptive cost meaning a cost that no other optical engine can achieve and while POET is able to  maintain a better than 60% gross margin.

There are other points of interest in this CC regarding the sale of DL that should be taken into consideration so I would  suggest you spend 1 hour today to  listen to  the whole thing.

https://cc.callinfo.com/cc/playback/Playback.do?id=7r2742