During the second quarter of 2024, POET made several announcements about collaborations, technology development, and financial progress. To help investors and industry observers further understand the significance of the recent news, the company is providing answers to the following frequently asked questions.
1. What is the timeline for development of the products related to the design win and collaboration with Foxconn Interconnect Technology?
On May 14, POET announced that Foxconn Interconnect Technology (FIT) had selected POET’s optical engines for its 800G and 1.6T optical transceiver modules. FIT is a market leader of interconnect solutions for communication infrastructure and several other large, high-growth markets, and was attracted to POET’s optical engines because of their best-of-breed components, high performance, and cost efficiency.
POET is on track to complete the design of the optical engines for FIT in 2024. There will be a period of about six months when FIT will sample the POET-equipped 800G optical transceiver modules to its customers. During the sampling phase, FIT customers may ask for design tweaks or customization, and such scenarios are built into the expected timeframe. POET anticipates FIT will place its first order for volume production in the second half of 2025. The 1.6T transceivers are expected to be sampled in late 2025 for production in late 2026.
POET and Luxshare Tech are working together to bring 800G and higher optical modules to the market
2. Several POET customers have been sampling and/or testing POET products since 2023. What is the status of these customer engagements?
Although POET has a number of customer engagements that are in various stages of development, these six customers — along with FIT — are the ones that have been announced and are closest to adoption of POET’s products for high-volume manufacturing.
- Luxshare Tech: In March, Luxshare introduced an 800G pluggable transceiver that includes POET’s 2x400G receive optical engine (RXOE) design. POET is finishing design work on a 400G transmit optical engine that will combine with the 400G RXOE to give Luxshare a complete POET-based chipset to sell to its end users. That chipset is on track to be ready for sampling in 2024.
- Celestial AI: POET Starlight™ is a lightbar component in Celestial AI’s flagship product, Photonic Fabric, that is designed to shatter the memory wall and deliver data directly to the point of compute. An 8-channel packaged light source for chip-to-chip AI applications and co-packaged optics for the data center market, Starlight can be integrated on a host board and connected to chips and ASICs with built-in silicon photonics. POET will supply initial production orders to Celestial AI in the second half of 2024.
- Adtran (formerly ADVA): Adtran is committed to advance its MicroMux™ Quattro 400G quad LR4 optical module with POET’s 100G CWDM and 100G LR4 engines. POET has configured 4x100G CWDM and 4x100G LR4 formats for the MicroMux product line. Designed to fit in a single QSFP-DD pluggable form factor, the Quattro transceivers can integrate seamlessly into standard 400G sockets and fan out 4x100GbE, maximizing the use of existing hardware in data centers.
- ZKTel: In January, POET announced that it is collaborating with ZKTel to develop a 100G CWDM4 optical transceiver module using POET optical engines supplied by Super Photonics Xiamen (SPX), the joint venture with Sanan IC. ZKTel is in the final stages of its qualification of the 100G CWDM4 module.
- Beijing FeiYunYi Technology (BFYY): Formed with the intent to sell optical modules that feature POET 100G optical engines, BFYY’s current plan is to focus on 400G.
- FiberTop Technology: POET has delivered its legacy optical engines to FiberTop, which is expected to place production orders through SPX in 2024.
3. What role is MultiLane playing in regards to accelerating POET’s speed to market?
MultiLane is one of the world’s leading suppliers of test equipment and testing solutions for the semiconductor and optoelectronics industry and has the capability to design and implement firmware needed for optical modules. POET and MultiLane are working together to develop next-generation, performance-optimized pluggable 800G, 1.6T, and 3.2T transceivers using POET’s transmit and receive optical engines.
The plan is to sell transceivers both to MultiLane’s existing customer base and to POET’s expanding roster of customers. MultiLane currently ships 10,000 products per week to its clients and has the manufacturing capability to help POET fulfill the orders it expects to receive as its modules complete their testing phase.
4. What is the status of the production capabilities of Super Photonics Xiamen (SPX)?
SPX has 38 employees as of June 2024 and is working to fulfill sampling orders for POET’s China-based customers (ZKTel, BFYY, and FiberTop). SPX is prepared to assemble, test, and package POET’s optical engines and optical transceivers as demand for volume production arrives, which is expected in 2024.
The performance of POET Starlight was demonstrated at the 2024 OFC Conference
5. Following the 2024 OFC Conference, POET stated that it is one of very few companies that can achieve 1.6T data speeds and 200G/lane design architecture. How does the company plan to maintain and expand on the market advantage it possesses?
The 2024 OFC Conference was a breakthrough moment for POET. The company demonstrated 200G/lane transmitter and receiver engines, fundamental building blocks for enabling pluggable transceivers at 1.6T and 3.2T data rates. The company has products right now that can reach 1.6T, which is what the biggest players in the industry want to see.
6. What developments should investors and followers of the company look forward to seeing for the second half of 2024?
In the three months since the OFC Conference, the company has followed up with prospects and turned them into new customers. Those customers are now going through design, development, testing, and qualification of optical modules based on POET’s optical engines. Those customer engagements will be the focus for the company’s engineering team for the months to come. As milestones are achieved, and to the extent that such progress can be made public, the company will provide updates.
When possible and determined to be in the company’s best interest, it intends to announce additional customers and other key development milestones.
7. The company’s AGSM takes place on June 21, 2024. What should investors know ahead of the meeting?
The company is in a critical moment. It is entering its growth phase that should result in rewards for everyone who has been on the journey for the past many years. To reach 1.6T and higher speeds, and expand upon the customer and partner relationships that the company has acquired and nurtured, POET needs the management tools to execute on its plans. Those plans require shareholders to approve the resolutions contained in the AGSM circular. Management advises shareholders to vote affirmatively for the resolutions, which will ensure that key employees and stakeholders are incentivized to remain in the company in the coming years. Consistency and stability are priorities to avoid unwanted disruptions in customer relationships and technology development.
Shareholders should be aware that there is no proxy voting that shifts control of their votes to the company should they not submit their ballot. A “yes” vote is the only way individual shareholders can give their support to the company as it prepares for the second half of the year — a period that is expected to pave a path to accolades and wide-spread recognition of the POET platform technology.