I recieved this question which was a very good one that I thought would share.

New to the board, but I've been reading for years, shareholder since 2013.  I was going to post this on the main board but didn't want to risk coming off as a basher.  From your recent posts on the ISRO Tender it's clear that POET is the best choice of the four companies. From your technical understanding, do you think a joint effort from United monolithic and light factory could challenge Poet as the frontrunner or do you think giving up a single platform would not be worth it for ISRO?

My answer

Good question. 
No I doubt that would be possible to meet the ultimate goal of monolithic integration. This is where you can use any of Geoff Taylor's historical quotes. The end goal is to have the monolithic read circuits and that means that optical circuits and electronic circuits have to be on the same die. And they note the preference for single mode VCSELs...that is POET with an alternative for in-plane applications where benefits justify...again POET. The one quote given referencing size for the emission area is 5mm X 5mm which is exactly the size that POET quotes their optical engine. 
I think POET had a very big hand in writing this RFP in a way that makes sense with regard to the current development of POET. 
Suresh talked about getting the GaAs platform into a foundry with a development time frame that matches the RFP.