Damnang
Semiconductor Engineer in Silicon Valley, AI Chip Investment Research
Lumentum, Coherent and AXT benefit because every 800G/1.6T pluggable and CPO engine still needs an InP laser, which silicon photonics cannot generate. Lumentum's CEO says the InP gap is now worse than DRAM and NAND, with EML demand over 30% above supply even after output rose 50%+ this year, and Nvidia put $2B each into Lumentum and Coherent to reserve that layer. NPO is fully additive, getting scale-up lasers paid before CPO ramps, and Lumentum is first into that socket. x.com x.com
A second round of optical investing has begun because the June-July correction cut valuations, not earnings. The selloff began with SemiAnalysis arguing scale-up CPO would slip beyond 2029, but in August Lumentum said scale-up CPO volume shipments for its lead customer start in H2 2027, and Coherent said no CPO demand has been pushed out. Lumentum won over $400M of OCS backlog from three new customers, Coherent sized OCS above $4 billion, and Aehr's backlog signals more optical output ahead. x.com x.com
Rising 1.6T switching demand favors optical suppliers, though their execution risks vary. Bank of America says the market could grow ~101% annually through 2030. Marvell's leading DSPs and Lumentum's supply-short 200G EML lasers are lowest risk; Applied Optoelectronics' capacity expansion and Fabrinet's customer concentration make them medium risk. Aeluma remains pre-commercial, while Lightwave Logic's polymer modulators are a high-risk moonshot despite its TSM partnership. x.com
Optics and photonics should be among AI's biggest winners as faster GPU networks need optical connections that suppliers cannot expand quickly enough. Lumentum says some components are sold out through early 2029; Sivers is investing $30M to target more than 100M lasers a year, with operations expected in Q4 2027. Potential US restrictions on Chinese transceivers could reshape supply in 2027. Applied Optoelectronics and Sivers are the favorites. x.com x.com
Applied Optoelectronics has a better chance than Coherent of delivering a 300-400 mW laser with tolerable RIN and linewidth. Its transceiver capacity ramp is also larger and is not gated by Sumitomo's 6-inch InP wafers. Long AAOI against short COHR is an unnecessarily dangerous pair trade idea. x.com
Optical transceiver demand exceeds supply, and 1.6T lifts revenue per module for suppliers able to qualify capacity. Applied Optoelectronics raised at least $1.62B through 2026 ATMs; its last reported monthly capacity was 200,000 modules versus a year-end target above 650,000. Credo expects over $600M in FY2027 revenue across optical DSPs, PICs and modules, not modules alone. Shipments, yields and margins must prove out. Lumentum and Coherent already price in much expected growth. x.com
Marvell risks paying a peak-scarcity price for Lumentum if optical supply catches up by 2028-30. The proposed ~$99B deal values Lumentum at roughly 20x guided annualized revenue and 58x estimated after-tax operating income, while Lumentum, Coherent and Chinese suppliers are adding laser capacity. The DSP-and-laser combination has strategic logic, but durable scarcity economics and Nvidia's response remain uncertain. x.com
Co-packaged optics standards could make finished transceiver modules smaller and more interchangeable as chip designers build optical engines inside their packages. That is another reason to avoid Lumentum, Coherent and Applied Optoelectronics and prefer Soitec. Lumentum and Coherent now earn a lot from finished modules, leaving them exposed if the architecture changes. x.com
The shift from copper to light inside AI data centers is accelerating, and near-packaged optics is pulling optical demand forward. Lumentum's CEO said NPO demand looks bigger than CPO and arrived sooner, and he sees about $40 per share of fiscal 2028 earnings power, above sell-side estimates, with none of it in the numbers yet. Coherent's CEO said CPO and NPO engagement has jumped, with comparable content per socket. NVIDIA has moved its Spectrum-X CPO switch into full production. x.com
Lumentum is seeing very bullish demand signals across near-package optics, lasers and links between data centers. Management sees NPO expanding the optical TAM, with about six core customers and revenue of $50M–$100M in Q4 2026 rising above $100M in Q1 2027. Lasers remain undersupplied: EML orders run into 2027 at rising prices. Lumentum holds about 80% of pump lasers, which it aims to quadruple by early 2028 as AI clusters spread across sites, with contract visibility over three years. x.com … Show more
Lumentum and Coherent face a threat from microLED optics, which could replace laser optics with 20x less power and no temperature sensitivity by late 2027. The use case is short-reach, high-volume links under 30 meters. The copper versus optics debate is a distraction, since every AI cluster needs both and Credo now does both while Applied Optoelectronics handles long-haul; the bigger question is what microLED does to laser makers. x.com x.com
Lumentum's AI demand is no longer a future story; it is already showing up in the numbers. Cloud and AI revenue more than doubled year over year, with components up 103% and systems up 123%. 200G EML shipments hit a record above 25% of EML revenue, CPO laser shipments are growing toward meaningful revenue by year-end, pump lasers rose 80% under long-term supply deals, initial 1.6T transceivers shipped, and the OCS ramp is on track under a multi-year, multibillion-dollar agreement. x.com
