jeunke22,
Not sure what you are referring to about modulators being commercially available in 2018?
A search on the 10Q shows the following use of the term commercial or commercialization:
Business Strategy:
• Grow our commercial device development capabilities
• Grow our commercial material manufacturing capabilities
• Maintain/develop strategic relationships with major telecommunications and data communications companies to further the awareness and commercialization of our technology platform
Grow our commercial device development capabilities
We intend to utilize our proprietary optical polymer technology to create an initial portfolio of commercial electro-optic polymer product devices with applications for various markets, including telecommunications, data communications and data centers. These product devices will be part of our proprietary photonics integrated circuit (PIC) technology platform.
The ridge waveguide modulator represents our first commercially viable device and targets the fiber optics communications market. We have completed internal market analysis and are initially targeting interconnect reach distances of greater than 10km. In these markets, the system network companies are looking to implement modulator-based transceivers that can handle aggregated data rates 100 Gbps and above. The market opportunity for greater than 10km is worth over $1B over the next decade.
While our polymer-based ridge waveguide and slot modulators are currently under development to be commercially viable products, our long-term device development goal is to produce a platform for the 400 Gbps and beyond transceiver market.
We expect to continue to incur substantial research and development expense to develop and commercialize our photonic devices PIC development and electro-optic materials platform. These expenses will increase as a result of accelerated development effort to support commercialization of our non-linear optical polymer materials technology; to build photonic device prototypes in our in-house laboratories; hiring additional technical and support personnel; engaging a senior technical advisor; pursuing other potential business opportunities and collaborations; customer testing and evaluation; and incurring related operating expenses.
Our cash requirements are expected to increase at a rate consistent with the Company’s path to revenue growth as we expand our activities and operations with the objective of commercializing our electro-optic polymer technology.
