The two are really worlds apart. The GaAs platform active devices namely the 4 terminal thyristor structure is still in the lab. The POET dielectric platform does not have to go through anywhere near the same level of development that is required for active devices. And the active devices they are using have long been established as commercial products throughout the world. POET is refining those devices specifically for the dielectric platform. They are essentially at the design level in a commercial environment for both initial production and volume production. 

As per the Jan 29 NR announcing the dielectric interposer:  Consistent with prior expectations, the company continues to work toward providing engineering samples of a receive optical engine to customers by the middle of 2018. This device will be fabricated leveraging Poet's optical interposer platform.

If we look at the Prospectus Supplement issued on March 14:

POET intends to use the net proceeds from the Offering for general corporate purposes, which may include, among other things, increased operating expenses from hiring of additional staff, capital equipment purchases, increased working capital requirements and further product development and sales activities, as well as potential business or intellectual property acquisitions in support of strategic growth. POET anticipates that approximately 70% of the funds raised will be devoted to product development of its optical interposer technology. The proceeds will also be used to fund further advances in packaging technology that may contribute to the cost performance of the Corporation’s sensing product line. The Corporation's R&D program is conducted through a combination of subcontract services and internal development and is geared toward the use of the Corporation’s optical interposer technology as a platform for the integration of electronic and optical devices into a single package. The first application of the optical interposer technology is for 100/400G transceiver optical engines, which the Corporation plans to introduce into the market in stages beginning in late 2018 and throughout 2019/2020. Other application areas for the optical interposer technology include automotive LIDAR, high-performance computing and chip-to-chip data communications via photonics.

And as a reminder it may be worth the time to review the following contained within the supplement:

Since the date of the Corporation's AIF, the following recent developments have occurred:

• On July 17, 2017, the Corporation announced that that its Narrow Linewidth Laser products have demonstrated industry-leading performance with "super-wide" tunability for high resolution sensing applications, such as gas & chemical sensing, coherent communication, meteorological sensing and atmospheric LIDAR; additional developments, including the incorporation of dielectric waveguides and wafer-level packaging is expected to accelerate growth in the sensing product line in 2018 and beyond. The Corporation also announced that technical challenges related to the manufacturability of the monolithic GaAs platform, have delayed POET’s development of a Gallium Arsenide (GaAs)-based optical engine. The additional development time and cost associated with the GaAs platform will require the Corporation to secure a strategic partner in order to develop and commercialize this platform.

• On September 5, 2017, the Corporation announced the appointment of Jean-Louis Malinge to the Board of Directors, who assumed the vacancy left by the resignation of Ajit Manocha. Mr. Malinge serves as partner with ARCH Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm with nearly $2 billion under management. Additionally, he also serves as a managing director for YADAIS, a leading consulting firm in the photonics and telecommunications industries, and is a board member of EGIDE SA, which designs, manufactures and sells hermetic packages for the protection and interconnection of several types of electronic and photonic chips. Mr. Manocha resigned to pursue a new position as president and CEO of SEMI, a global industryorganization serving the electronics manufacturing supply chain.

• On September 5, 2017, the Corporation's wholly-owned subsidiary DenseLight Semiconductors ("DenseLight") announced that it planned to commence sampling high-power, continuous wave 1310nm distributed feedback (DFB) lasers for 100G silicon photonics applications. The high-power continuous wave 1310nm DFBs are expected to generate peak power levels of 60mW across temperature, which is required for today's 100G Silicon Photonics applications.

• On September 6, 2017, DenseLight announced that it had begun sampling Avalanche Photodiodes (APD) and PIN Photodiodes (PIN) for the 10G Datacom and Telecom markets. In addition, DenseLight has also begun sampling its Monitor Photodiode (MPD) arrays for applications in 100G Datacom applications. DenseLight's arrays are expected to provide a cost competitive alternative to current offerings, while meeting the performance needs of customers deploying systems in these markets.

• On September 7, 2017, DenseLight announced its introduction of a suite of specialized external cavity narrow linewidth (NLW) laser products. DenseLight's NLW lasers are assembled in integrated laser modules (ILM) and provide feature rich extensions to the existing BF series ILMs. The new family will feature laser sources with lower Relative Intensity Noise (RIN) relative to current offerings and at the low-end include a standard CW capable light source (BF9C). A higher-end module will add power tuning capability, lower RIN and improved temperature range (BF15); the flagship product will offer highly integrated BF18 with even lower RIN and "super wide" tunability. These new product introductions primarily target a wide range of communication and sensing applications, including coherent communication, laser interferometry, LIDAR wind detection, long distance fiber, fiber array sensing and acoustic sensing.

• On January 22, 2018, the Corporation announced the appointment to the Board of Directors of Don Listwin, who assumed the vacancy left by the resignation of Todd DeBonis. Mr. Listwin has over 30 years of technology investing and management experience, highlighted by a decade at Cisco Systems, where he served as executive vice president. During his tenure at Cisco, he built several multi-billion-dollar lines of business, including the company's Service Provider line of business that underpins much of today's global Internet infrastructure. More recently, Listwin served as chief executive officer of both Sana Security and Openwave Systems.

• On January 29, 2018, the Corporation announced the introduction of a new Optical Interposer Platform product, which facilitates the co-packaging of electronics and optics in a single Multi-Chip Module (MCM).

Based on its previously announced Dielectric Waveguide technology, the Corporation's Optical Interposer provides the ability to run electrical and optical interconnections side-by-side on the same interposer chip at a micrometer scale. The optical interposer represents an integral part of the Corporation's hybrid integrated optical engines and leverages the manufacturing processes and unique capabilities of its dielectric waveguides.

• On January 30, 2018, the Corporation successfully demonstrated a high-frequency waveguide integrated PIN Photodiode targeting 100G and 400G data center applications. The Corporation's PIN Photodetector has successfully demonstrated a 3dB optical bandwidth of 37GHz, which is a typical requirement for achieving 50GBaud data rates. The achieved native bandwidths are more than capable of supporting the requirements of a 100G Receive Optical Engines (4 lanes at 25Gb/s each), and they can be extended to support 200G/400G engines. Unlike more conventional top-entry PIN photodiodes, the Corporation utilizes an evanescently coupled twin waveguide structure with integrated spot-size converters that is compatible with its recently announced Optical Interposer Platform and is designed to operate in the wavelength range from 1310nm to 1550nm.

• On March 5, 2018, the Corporation announced that it had entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Accelink Technologies Co., Ltd. ("Accelink") with respect to a preferred co-development partnership that outlines terms for mutual cooperation between the Corporation and Accelink for developing, qualifying and selling a family of transceiver products based on the Corporation's Optical Interposer Platform. The MOU seeks to rapidly commercialize a series of advanced multichannel (100/400G) transmit and receive devices for the datacom markets and low-cost single channel (10/25G) products for telecom applications.