ENGLEWOOD, CO, Jan. 11, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lightwave Logic, Inc. (OTCQB: LWLG) announced today that it sent an Open Letter to its Shareholders.
Open Letter to Lightwave Logic, Inc. Shareholders
Fellow Shareholders,
I would like to take the opportunity today to bring all of you up to date with the excellent progress we have been making over the past quarter. This is a follow-on shareholder letter from the previous quarterly letter in October 2018. You can expect to receive the next quarterly letter roughly 3 months from now.
During the last quarter of 2018 we have continued to receive technical feedback from prospective customers, and the team is energized and motivated by our continued progress. As we noted in the prior quarter’s letter, we are encouraged by the validation of our belief that we are positioning ourselves ahead of our competitors as we noted in our recent white paper [1].
We are positioning ourselves ahead of our competition with our 50 Gbaud polymer modulator. From 3 years ago, we have successfully caught up with the competition by advancing from a 3 Gbps modulator to packaged 50 Gbps modulators in May 2018. In my personal experience in this highly technical and complex field, this is an almost unheard-of short period of time. In accordance with our annual plan presented at the May 2018 Annual Shareholder Meeting (ASM), we continue our development of the 50 Gbaud (capable of 50 Gbps and above) packaged modulator prototypes, and we have accelerated work on 100 Gbaud polymer modulators which are well ahead of any existing products on the market.
By being ahead of the competition, we believe we are gaining significant market leverage through technical advantage and performance of our polymer modulators.
Our market leverage means that Lightwave Logic has productized technology that customers not only want, but they see Lightwave Logic as the only place to access it. This means our products are not just slightly more attractive, they are technologically more attractive than the established technology. We see that competitive incumbent technology and its products simply cannot do what Lightwave Logic’s technology and products can.
Our position must be protected, and we do that with a combination of a strengthening patent portfolio and increased number of protected trade secrets and know-how. We are pleased to report that in December 2018 we were granted US Patent number 10,162,111 entitled, “Multi-fiber/port hermetic capsule sealed by metallization and method” [2]. While this brings our total portfolio to 30 patents, the greater significance in my opinion is that this is a packaging and integration patent, and moreover one that leverages established semiconductor manufacturing to solve photonics challenges. The novel package described in the patent reduces cost and size, but also simplifies assembly and increases reliability. We believe that this patent is especially significant for us because improved packaging and manufacturability are essential for photonics to reach the volumes and cost points demanded by the datacenter and 5G markets; and we believe this particular patent will protect our competitive advantages due to improved cost and volume manufacturability. We are very protective of our trade secrets and our proprietary information on our electro-optic polymers, particularly as we go out to market. Our patent portfolio protects our enabling technologies ranging from our electro-optic polymer material through packaging.
We are building our intellectual property with the view to maintaining our competitive position in the years ahead. Another of our patent applications was published late in the third quarter of 2018 [3]. This invention relates to the power and cost saving potential of a high performance 50 Gbaud (and potentially 100 Gbaud) direct drive polymer modulator. With these attributes we hope to gain significant market leverage at 50 Gbaud and beyond. Presently, other modulator technologies are struggling not only to achieve 100 Gbaud but also to get their voltage level down to 1V.
We believe our P2IC™platform with tiny 100 Gbaud polymer modulators with low voltage electrical bias are extremely attractive for the next generation fiber optic transceivers. We also continue to believe the market will value our small form factor 50Gbaud polymer modulators.
In the last quarter, our communications included an announcement of participation in influential industry groups which include potential customers. We also announced our intention to participate in the medium-reach (10 km and above) fiber optics market in addition to the other market segments we target. These and future press releases are, or will be, available on our website www.lightwavelogic.com. We have begun adding supplementary information to our website and plan to continue to add more material. The latest published content is highlighted on the homepage. We encourage you to sign up for “All Communications” via our website to receive direct notification of press releases and new website content as they are published.
We are working diligently to meet our goals as laid out at the May 2018 ASM. We are designing, fabricating, and characterizing our modulators at our HQ facility in Englewood, Colorado.
- This work includes increasing the efficiency of our electro-optic materials towards the goal of lower drive voltage at 50 Gbps.
- This work also includes improved and optimized device designs which support the goal of demonstrating greater than 50 GHz electro-optic bandwidth.
- We have intensified our device design work around improved launch of light from InP lasers so that our modulators support the goal of designing the PIC platform with InP lasers.
- We are working closely with our packaging partner for the 50 Gbaud prototype.
- Internally, we have increased our reliability testing capabilities in support of the goal of testing packaged modulators.
- Per the stated goal to upgrade our optical testing and characterization laboratory for higher performance measurements (>50 GHz), we are actively engaged with test equipment manufacturers to deliver the most advanced test equipment which have capabilities up to 110 GHz.
We are fine tuning our business model with target markets, customers, and technical specifications. Discussions with prospective customers are validating that our modulators are ideally suited for the datacenter and telecommunications markets that are over 10 km in length. This first target market is expected to be worth over $1B over the next decade. As we noted in the in the previous quarterly letter, the customer design-in process encompasses initial evaluation of our samples, reliability and test data, proceeding to more extensive evaluation, optimization, and possible customization. The potential customers’ technical feedback is provided back to our technical team.
We are working through all our milestones as laid out in the May 2018 ASM, and we are happy to report that we are making excellent progress and are on track to achieve the goals we set out at that time.
Looking forward
Our target markets in datacom, telecommunications, 5G etc., include fiber reaches that are over 10km in length. These markets are forecasted to grow significantly over the next decade. While participating in these markets we will explore opportunities in shorter reach markets that are in the 1-10 km lengths. We will not only scale our polymer modulator products both with technical specifications and high performance, but also in volume to bring the cost in line with customer expectations. The issuing of patents and patent applications that address advanced high bandwidth modulators with low voltage drive together with manufacturable low cost optical sub-assembly packaging will position our company and products well in our target markets. The combination of advanced technological solutions for this market-place as we move forward is perfect to commercialize our proprietary electro-optic polymer platform.
Thank you for your continuing support.
Michael Lebby
CEO
References:
[1] White paper
http://lightwavelogic.com/external.asp?b=2252&from=dl&ID=175530
[2] Issued US PTO patent 10, 162,111
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=(%22lebby+michael%22.INNM.)&OS=in/%22lebby+michael%22&RS=IN/%22lebby+michael%22
[3] Patent Application: DIRECT-DRIVE POLYMER MODULATOR METHODS OF FABRICATING AND MATERIALS THEREFOR
Publication number: 20180259798