News: Optoelectronics
29 September 2021
POET launches products and Optical Interposer platform in China
POET Technologies Inc of Toronto, Ontario, Canada — a designer and developer of the POET Optical Interposer and photonic integrated circuits (PICs) for the data-center and telecom markets — says that its participation in the two optoelectronics conferences/exhibitions in China in mid-September generated numerous customer engagements for both its announced Optical Engine products and its Optical Interposer platform. Notably, transceiver module supplier Shenzhen Fibertop Technology Co Ltd committed to incorporate POET Optical Engines in its line of optical modules as soon as production Optical Engines are available.
Live demos of six different applications of the Optical Interposer encompassing both standard and custom products developed by POET were conducted over five full days (14–18 September) in Shenzhen in conjunction with the 23rd China International Optoelectronics Exhibition (CIOE 2021) and the concurrent ICCSZ Conference. The live demos were held in meeting rooms located at both of the conference venues and in POET’s lab in Shenzhen. In addition, Dr Mo Jinyu, POET’s senior VP – Asia, gave an invited presentation during the ICCSZ Conference that was attended by nearly 1000 industry participants.
POET says that among the attendees of the live demonstrations were more than 60 C-level and senior R&D executives representing over 20 companies, including major China-based network equipment suppliers, tier-1 transceiver module companies, leading optical module and fiber-optic companies (several of which are publicly traded), data-center operators, and major multi-billion-dollar public enterprise companies aiming to expand into the optical transceiver business. Interest was shown in engaging with POET on both a strategic level and in evaluating and subsequently sourcing the Optical Engine products outlined in its roadmap, says the firm.
Attracting the most attention was POET’s demonstration of a 400G FR4 transmit engine performed as a two-chip demo in connection with SiluxTek’s high-performance silicon photonics-based modulator. Over the next several months, POET plans to transform the two-chip pre-Alpha prototype into a fully integrated transmit and receive Beta product for sampling to interested customers.
The firm also demonstrated its standard products, soon to be in Beta form, featuring a 100G CWDM4 transmit engine, a 200G FR4 receive engine, and three versions of its LightBar products, including a 4-channel transmit engine with continuous wave (CW) lasers and arrayed waveguide (AWG) multiplexer, a dual two-channel version with low-loss Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) multiplexers, and (the firm’s newest advanced development) a LightBar designed to connect four separate channels into a single multi-core fiber (MCF), which has the potential to solve key challenges in 800G and co-packaging applications.
“Participation in these conferences and especially the live demonstrations made a tremendous impact on the optical ecosystem in China,” reckons president & general manager Vivek Rajgarhia. “We were already engaged with a few customers, such as Fibertop, and their commitment to adopt POET optical engines in their optical modules is a breakthrough for us,” he adds. “Other companies requested samples of our demonstrated products, and several more want to either engage in development contracts that would incorporate POET Optical Engines in their products or have POET incorporate their components into POET’s Optical Engines. Numerous opportunities for increased customer engagement in China, including with some of the largest players, resulted from this effort. I would like to commend and thank Dr Mo Jinyu and her team in our Shenzhen office, as well as the team from our Super Photonics JV, for an outstanding debut of POET Technologies into the optoelectronics market in China.”
POET ships first optical engine samples to customers
POET teams with Silux to demo 400G optical engine during CIOE
POET sampling 100G and 200G CWDM4 Optical Interposer-based engines from early July
