Santec's optical-components moat deserves a much richer multiple. Structural factors in Japan, such as foreign investors being underweight, keep quality names mispriced for years, making the market a goldmine for this kind of disconnect. @Monolith_Cap notes Santec traded below 10 times earnings at times in 2023 and 2025, a striking gap from fundamentals. x.com 

Optical test suppliers benefit because CPO and NPO both need verified components. CPO needs screening before costly integration and checks after assembly; NPO modules must be known-good before installation. VCSELs change measurements, not the need for reliability checks. Broadcom's OCP slide shows 1,000+ fibers per chip package and automated testing. Avoid panic-selling FormFactor, Aehr, Keysight, Teradyne, Viavi, Advantest and Cohu; upside depends on adoption, volume and throughput. x.com  x.com  … Show more

Optical test makers such as FormFactor, Aehr Test Systems and Viavi should keep growing whichever optical path wins, because every interconnect, pluggable, near-packaged or co-packaged, must be tested. Optical stocks plunged after a June report of CPO shipment delays, and engineers now point to a growing role for near-packaged optics and possible delays in some scale-up CPO. That shifts the question to who benefits as both grow, and testing is the bottleneck behind every other AI bottleneck. … Show more

Shorter qualification windows make transceiver testing a critical bottleneck for photonics, favoring Viavi, Aehr Test Systems, Cohu, FormFactor and Teradyne. Celestica's OCP slide shows windows falling from 36 months for 400G to 24 for 800G and 18 for 1.6T. With GPU architectures refreshing every 12 months and 224G per lane leaving little margin for error, laser fab capacity alone cannot match the silicon cadence without faster validation. x.com 

Lumentum and Coherent sit at the center of a multiplicative optical bottleneck, where parts, capacity, yield and customer sign-off each limit output. Next-gen AI clusters need optical interconnect, and McKinsey sees 800G transceiver output 40-60% short of demand through 2027 as the market doubles to $26B in 2026. Nvidia invested $2B each in both to lock in laser supply, and the FCC is drafting curbs on Chinese transceiver imports; Chinese suppliers hold ~60% of optical-component revenue. x.com  … Show more

VIAVI is a picks-and-shovels winner as AI data-center optical testing becomes its main growth driver. Revenue rose 42.8% to $406.8M on data-center and aerospace and defense demand, non-GAAP EPS jumped 80% to $0.27 with a 21% operating margin, and its network and service enablement segment grew 54.4% as Spirent contributes. Next-quarter guidance calls for $427-437M of revenue. The photonics buildout needs high-volume test and measurement, and data-center capex is surging. x.com  x.com 

Tower Semiconductor's silicon photonics demand is accelerating earnings, supporting a Buy with a $260 target, or 26x 2027E EPS. 2Q26 revenue rose 24% to $460M and operating profit 125%, with an EPS beat on utilization and mix. 3Q26 guidance is a record $520M, up 31% YoY. Hyperscalers have locked in $1.3B of 2027 SiPho revenue, 2028 wafer commitments should exceed 2027, and new customers are qualifying. 2026/27 EPS estimates rise to $4.5 and $10, with NPO volume ramping in 2H27. x.com 

Fabrinet is the strategic bottleneck for 1.6T optical interconnects, as its proprietary 5-axis active alignment solves the sub-0.5-micron laser coupling these transceivers need. HPC revenue jumped to $86M in Q2 FY26 from $15M on 200G EML lasers for Nvidia networking. Its Thailand Building 10 expansion starts going live in July 2026, AWS and Google broaden the customer base, and it holds $961M cash with no net debt. At about 3.6x forward sales, it is not priced for hype. x.com