Galahad: Maybe Rockley decided they were not able to compete in the transceiver space. Let´s hope so. But it really looks like they are not that much bothered. LIDAR is a MUCH bigger arena. With FEWER players in it.

When Vivek joined POET we were able to  meet with him and the topic of  Rockley came up. We were advised that Rockley had changed focus away from datacom because they could not compete (or something to that effect). One just has to look at the  comparison chart on page 12 of the new presentation to understand why. The very first line “Low-Loss Athermal Waveguides”. This is what the POET platform is built around. The dielectric stack.  Andrew Richman has  long stated that when  it comes to  waveguides bigger is better and  that is true for silicon waveguides. The bigger the waveguide the more tolerant the waveguide is to fabrication deviation for the targeted wavelength but that does not reduce wavelength drift caused by refraction index changes due to temperature deviation. And Silicon Photonics waveguides are deeply buried in Silicon on Insulator (SOI) wafers whereas POET waveguides are formed in the dielectric stack located on the surface of a silicon wafer. Did Rockley see the writing on the wall. I think so. We talked to Suresh about Rockley over two years ago and it was suggested that Andrew Richman knew these limitations could not provide the level of efficiency that was emerging with the optical interposer. Remember Rockley has been at this for much longer than POET so I think those limitations represent real barriers for silicon photonics to compete long term with the POET Platform.

In terms of market size I don’t know what information you are referencing but a quick check indicates The LiDAR Market size is projected to reach USD 2.8 billion by 2025. Page 18 shows the transceiver TAM (100/200 & 400G) to be US$5.7 by 2025.

A couple of applicable quotes:

we have the densest, smallest form factor, which means…conventionally if you could fit a single engine in the space available to you, you now can fit up to four. It provides you some alternative architectures that you previously couldn’t dream about doing. So it does open up the space of applications because of that kind of density and form factor that we offer. Of course we do that while maintaining very good electrical as well as optical performance.

we believe that Poet, because of its ubiquitous nature and versatility has some very, very interesting possibilities and applications in the burgeoning health arena, where point-of-use type devices are critically important

At the end of the day, as Vivek always tells me, there’s just been so much new stuff in optics that just hasn’t kind of worked out. That there are a lot of people that are gun shy, and its up to us to deliver proof of performance. We’re actively working towards doing that. So, we are happy to have this customer engagement. Of course, you know that means we have to deliver, which we’re putting forth execution plans to do. But the engagement has been good. The interest has been great. And we believe that once we have samples in the hands of a few customers that are fully validated, that we believe that we can really grow this capability, and grow our business along with it.

Slide 9 of the new presentation was very interesting for me and makes possible the following declaration in that presentation:

The lowest coupling loss in the industry