POET Technologies Inc.

Suresh Venkatesan, CEO

Dr. Suresh Venkatesan joined POET Technologies from GLOBALFOUNDRIES where he served most recently Senior Vice President, Technology Development at GLOBALFOUNDRIES and was responsible for the company’s Technology Research and Development. Dr. Venkatesan joined GLOBALFOUNDRIES in 2009, where he led the development and ramp of the 28nm node and was instrumental in the technology transfer and qualification of 14nm. In addition, he was responsible for the qualification and ramp up of multiple mainstream value added technology nodes.

Dr. Venkatesan is an industry veteran with over 22 years of experience in semiconductor technology development. Prior to joining GLOBALFOUNDRIES, he held various leadership positions with Freescale Semiconductor in Austin, Texas. Dr. Venkatesan holds over 25 US patents, and has co-authored over 50 technical papers. He holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology and Master of Science and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University.

Subhash Deshmukh, COO

Dr. Subhash Deshmukh came to POET Technologies from Applied Materials, where he served most recently as Vice President of Emerging Technologies and Products and, previously, as General Manager of the Dielectric Etch Products Division. Subhash served as Vice President and General Manager of the Plasma Products Business Unit, as well as Vice President of Business Development, at Varian, which was acquired by Applied Materials. Subhash’s background also includes executive and management positions at Lam Research and AMI Semiconductors.

Subhash holds a PhD in Chemical Sciences, has authored and co-authored over 55 technical articles and has been granted over 27 patents, with several patents pending.

Geoff Taylor, Chief Scientist

Geoff Taylor is the Chief Scientific officer and the inventor of the POET devices and the related monolithic approach to the optoelectronic integrated circuit. Much of the early work on POET was done at AT&T Bell Labs , initially at Murray Hill NJ and later at Holmdel NJ with the support of the US AirForce. Since leaving Bell Labs, he has performed the technology development and commercialization activity at the University of Connecticut where he is a full professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Dr. Taylor is the original founder of POET Technologies and maintained the company in its early days with SBIR funding.

Gerard William Rodrigues, Chairman / Chief Executive Officer

Jerry has been associated with Denselight Semiconductors since its founding in 2000. He was then Non-Executive Director, appointed by 3i Group the early investors and founders of the company. During this period he was also appointed non-executive Chairman. From June 2008, Jerry assumed full responsibilities as CEO and Executive Chairman of Denselight Semiconductors.

Jerry has over 40 years experience in the electronics industry holding senior executive positions in several multinational companies among which were Texas Instruments, ITT Electronics and Data General Corp. In 1988, he helmed a management buyout that later became GulTech Ltd a company that he listed on the stock exchange of Singapore. From early 2000’s he has been involved in mergers, acquisitions and restructuring of companies working independently through his company, GWR Associates, for local and international investment and public listed companies.

Yee-Loy Lam, Chief Operating Officer / Chief Technology Officer

Lam Yee Loy is COO/CTO of DenseLight Semiconductors, and one of four co-founders of the company.

Prior to founding DenseLight Semiconductors, Dr. Lam was a professor in the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) of Singapore from 1990 to 2000, leading a team of about 150 staff in the Microelectronics Division. He also served in a concurrent appointment with the Office of the University’s President, contributing significantly to NTU’s position as the University of the Industry. Dr. Lam was also invited to sit on the NTU Council (Univ. Board of Governors), representing all academic staff, from 1996 to 1998.

Before joining NTU, Dr. Lam headed the R&D Department in Rank O’Connors from 1985 to 1989, establishing the manufacturing operations for building automation products.

Dr. Lam’s area of technical expertise is in optoelectronics, fiber-optics sensors, and photonics systems applications. Recognising and identifying photonics sciences as a critical industry driver, he played a key role in the surge of photonics-related business interest to Singapore. This included introducing postgraduate courses in photonics, establishing the formation of the Singapore Center of Photonics Excellence, and serving as the Symposium Chairman for the inaugural SPIE conference ISPA-99 & ISMA 2000.

Dr. Lam received his Bachelors in Engineering with First Class Honours in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (NTI 1985 Pioneer Class), and his Masters in Industrial Engineering, from the National University of Singapore (NUS). He also holds a MSE degree and a Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, USA.

Yuen-Chuen Chan, Vice President Engineering (Photonics)

Prior to co-founding DenseLight Semiconductors, Dr Chan was professor in NTU and was the coordinator of the university's Photonics Research Group. He managed the university's photonic devices fabrication Lab and within a short span of 2.5yrs, expanded facilities into a cluster to service industrial programs and published more than 180 scientific and industrial papers.

Dr Chan brings deep expertise in industrial device fabrication development, component structural design, opto-electronic epitaxial and grating re-growth. With experience dating back to University of Tokyo, Dr Chan did the then pioneering work developing the tensile strained quantum well growth technique on GaAs for polarization insensitive optical modulation. In NTU, he won many industrial funding programs and led large-scale project teams for photonics device research and manufacturing fabrication. These programs include epitaxial growth by MBE, MOCVD and LPE and characterization of quantum well structures, laser diodes, optical modulators, photo-detectors and PICs. His accomplished experience in leading fabrication teams resulted in DenseLight owning significant structure fabrication competence IP and the capability to rapidly rollout PIC product.

Dr Chan pursued his education as a distinguished Public Service Commission Monbusho Scholar and received his B.Eng, M.Eng and PhD degrees in Electronics Engineering majoring in Optoelectronics, all from the University of Tokyo in Japan.

Bryan Keith Patmon, Vice President (Sales & Marketing)

A marketing and engineering executive with 30 years of experience within the semiconductor and electronics industry. He has over 20 years of working experience in the Far East. His experiences includes being the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Memstech Sdn Bhd, Managing Director and Company Head of a MEMS based sensor companies, Electronic Subcontract Assembly Company, Head of Engineering at National Semiconductor (Malacca), and Alphatec Electronics (Thailand).

Bryan obtained his Bachelor of Science Degree in Packaging Engineering from Michgan State University in 1982.