Thanks, X.
Yes...NLM hired EnoSemi to help with the design of their PIC that was announced last year. AMD acquired EnoSemi for a bunch of their silicon photonics IP, but also most importantly the team. The founders scored a huge payday despite the relatively small purchase price because they didn't raise any money outside of their initial seed round that we participated in. The EnoSemi team now is in charge of AMD's photonics program. Eno was about to do a Series A before AMD said MINE like those seagulls in Finding Nemo. Their Series A pitch deck was absurd with details on what they accomplished and where they were going. Had it matured a bit more, we would have been looking at a 100x on our money. I'd be curious what Matt's opinion is of EO polymers now that another couple years have passed. He was very positive towards them when I first connected with him. I chatted with him a good bit around the time of the acquisition and he said at AMD his focus would be on the 'standard' silicon photonics. In hindsight, we now know their plan is/was to go head to head with Nvidia. I wouldn't be shocked if AMD is the Stage 3 partner working on a CPO application. In fact, it's probably likely IMO. Them or Broadcom, I'd guess.
Anyway...NLM basically had to replace Eno. NLM is very good with material development, but needs help on the device side. I believe they've had a couple announcements lately with collaborators who effectively have replaced EnoSemi. Spark Photonics was the most recent.
I've said this before, but despite the 'us vs them' going around...we all should want to see NLM succeed. I think of them as the trailblazers. They have allowed so many groups to experiment with their material for all sorts of applications outside of datacom. Their material is on the International Space Station right now going through radiation testing. That's so cool. A failure of an "organics" company today would be a HUGE hit to the perception of polymers at the worst time. It has taken literally decades for EOP to finally get the respect we're seeing. We can't afford any more stains. I don't really see NLM as a major commercial threat to LWLG. LWLG owns the vast majority of IP in this field and holds all of the leverage there. LWLG already has its own infrastructure to be ready for volume deployment. Plus, my understanding is that LWLG's material is easier to process because it does not require crosslinking. There's public statements from both companies that indicate where each are in regards to wafer-scale processing. LWLG is far in the lead there. Also, if you can understand each company's announcements with GFS/Tower...you'll understand there is a difference. Might sound the same to some, but it's not.
I have more things I could say about NLM here that fall outside of my NDA...but I don't want to go down that route. Brad reads/has read this message board and I get the feeling he doesn't like me anymore lol. Even though I've been one of the most staunch supporters of this technology for the last 20 years. My personal and financial relationship with LWLG was disclosed to the entire NLM team on my first call with them, which lasted 2-3 hours.
Regarding the recent Marvell/Polariton news...in the last several years it has only been LWLG's material inside Polariton's ring modulators. Their 3.2T PIC announced last fall (which is probably what Marvell wants for the most part) is ring-based. I'm aware there has been confirmation by other means that LWLG is inside and part of the work Marvell wanted. I believe NLM's material is inside a non-ring based gold box modulator that Polariton was/is selling (the IQ). So that article is mistaken.
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