Himax offers high-upside optionality on microLED-based co-packaged optics, alongside its micro-lens arrays that route light into fiber. The microLED approach uses hundreds or thousands of simple low-speed lanes, removing high-speed SerDes, DSP and the InP laser and cutting energy below 1 pJ/bit. Himax's display-driver know-how maps unusually well onto it. It is pre-revenue, short-reach only and debated, but at ~10x EV/gross profit, current levels look reasonable for those who see a path for CPO. … Show more

Himax's microlens monopoly is real but narrower than the market thinks. As the Hunterbrook and Citrini report claimed, and Tianfeng Securities confirms, it is the sole microlens supplier for TSMC's COUPE Gen 1-2. That is not a monopoly on Nvidia's co-packaged optics: Himax is not among Nvidia's 11 official CPO partners, TFC, Corning and Orbray build CPO-grade fiber array units without it, and 80% of revenue is still display drivers. That leaves it a small, low-conviction long. x.com  x.com 

Himax is a core bottleneck in TSMC's COUPE co-packaged optics ecosystem, with first commercial CPO shipments due in H2 2026 as a short validation horizon. FOCI assembles fiber units but cannot ship without Himax's optical substrates. Himax owns wafer-level optics lines already paid for by a decade of AR spending, so even small optics sales would lift profits sharply and force a re-rating. Visera is no drop-in substitute, as Himax's polymer optics handle CPO power levels. x.com  x.com 

Himax's Q1 2026 update checks off the Apple and NVIDIA opportunities. Per @wallstengine, WiseEye was adopted by a leading smart-glasses brand with mass production later this year, first-generation co-packaged optics ship in small quantities in 2H26, and second-generation CPO is nearing customer validation for AI data centers. Revenue of $199.0M and EPS beat estimates, and Q2 guidance for 10-13% sequential revenue growth and about 32% gross margin topped consensus. x.com 

Himax's LCoS microdisplay leads on the size, weight and power that all-day AR glasses need, and possible links to Apple and Google aren't priced. It will show a 0.09cc, 0.2g, 350,000-nit spec at SID Display Week on May 6. Apple's incoming CEO John Ternus, a hardware engineer, may push sub-50g glasses, and a @hntrbrkmedia and @citrini report pointed to an Apple link. Google sold its waveguide lab to Vuzix, whose reference design uses Himax LCoS. None is confirmed, and Himax lags on consumer wins. … Show more

Himax is quietly becoming an edge AI and AI vision semiconductor story while most people still see it as a display driver company. Its growth areas now include edge AI sensing, AI vision processors, automotive AI, AR/VR optics and robotics perception, and its ultra-low-power WiseEye AI platform is gaining traction in smart devices and AIoT. The market is starting to re-rate the AI side, and the chart shows a multi-year Stage 1 breakout with heavy accumulation. x.com 

FOCI's ReLFACon reflowable lensed fiber array connector is its moat in CPO: it links fiber arrays directly into silicon-photonics CPO modules with heat-tolerant materials matching the chip's thermal expansion, holding alignment through hot packaging. Its fiber array units, about 40% of CPO module cost, partly decide whether CPO can be mass-produced. Himax and TSMC ties make it Taiwan's core FAU player. @aleabitoreddit expects Nvidia's Computex keynote to lift Taiwan optics including FOCI. x.com 

Coherent's 6-inch substrate access, yields and margin concerns look mostly like timing issues in the optical buildout. Coherent is now one of the preferred ways to gain exposure and should participate meaningfully, despite those constraints. x.com 

Lumentum's valuation is supported by Nvidia's co-packaged optics scale-out progressing faster than expected. Spectrum-X CPO switches are in mass production on better component yields, with shipments forecast at 15k in 4Q26 rising to 100k in 2027. CPO and NPO are seen contributing 12% and 26% of Lumentum's revenue in 2027 and 2028. Scale-up optical engine estimates were revised to 6.5m and 42m for 2027 and 2028, with full NPO adoption for the cycle retained. x.com 

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