POET Technologies Inc of San Jose, CA, USA — which has developed the proprietary planar optoelectronic technology (POET) platform for monolithic fabrication of integrated III-V-based electronic and optical devices on a single semiconductor wafer — has completed its stock-only acquisition of BB Photonics Inc, a designer of integrated photonic solutions for the data communications market (announced on 17 May), in exchange for issuing 1,996,090 common shares (for a total deemed purchase price of $1.55m). POET now owns 100% of BB Photonics and its assets, including intellectual property and technologies. BB Photonics had no liabilities at closing.
BB Photonics (a pre-revenue, New Jersey-based privately held company) develops photonic integrated components for the data-center market utilizing embedded dielectric technology that is intended to enable on-chip athermal wavelength control and lower the total solution cost of data-center photonic integrated circuits (PICs).
The strategic acquisition is designed to provide POET with additional differentiated intellectual property and know-how for product development, to enable POET to better service its first identified commercialization market (the end-to-end data communications market), and to augment its sensing roadmap.
"The addition of BB Photonics significantly enhances our integrated photonic solution set and advances our commercialization initiative," says POET's CEO Dr Suresh Venkatesan. "By internal development and acquisition, we are accelerating our drive from technology leadership to market entry in differentiated photonics."
The POET platform and process technology continue to be the focal point of the firm's commercialization strategy. To this end, the POET team continues to make progress toward its previously announced goal of demonstrating an integrated product prototype by the end of 2016 using the POET platform. The firm's recent acquisitions (including DenseLight Semiconductors) and organic development are intended to serve as a logical continuum of the roadmap by enabling immediate market entrance into its first identified commercialization market (datacoms). The firm says that its acquisitions also allow it to engage prospective customers with an extensive suite of integrated photonics products, enabling multiple differentiated product sales and enhancing potential revenue.
