POET wants to license to all foundries but in utilizing BAE for ongoing development they have certain advantages including removing leverage from commercial partners such as GF. Also they avoid stepping on any toes in terms of customers. That being said it will be easier for POET foundries to gain training at the Nashua BAE facility within the POET ring fence I think rather than having direct competitor foundries coming up to speed in a non-friendly competing foundry (GF). One would expect that BAE wants POET exclusively for Military applications. This gives POET some leverage and I think we might just be hearing about a deal for military applications?
From the 20-F filing
Manufacturing
The Company has contracted with BAE for the transition phase of its POET platform development from the POET laboratory on the campus of UCONN. If successfully completed, the Company expects to negotiate with BAE for the continued and on-going manufacture of wafers to meet the Company’s initial requirements for sampling and marketing purposes.
BAE’s III-V GaAs fabrication facility is ISO 9001/14001 certified; military specification certified and can produce radiation hard devices. BAE’s state of the art facility houses two 3” wafer diameter production lines and two 6” wafer diameter production lines within 14,000 sq. ft. and a wafer test area covering 16,000 sq. ft. The facility is vibration isolated and environmentally controlled for sub-micron device development and manufacture. We believe that there is substantial capacity available to us for implementation of our development and to-market plans, and that BAE would be receptive to making such capacity available to us. Currently, a staff of over 150 engineers is devoted to design and development with another 70 devoted to foundry operations and testing. Thus the Company believes that BAE’s wafer production capabilities can be a significant resource to the Company’s marketing efforts
