COHR

Wow, Largan Chairman dropped a nuke and stated MicroLEDs unlikely to become viable for AI DC buildouts As for what's up and coming... Feels like $AMD, $NVDA, and everyone in the industry is clearly going out of their way to procure CW laser supply this year. EML was the market's focus last year with $LITE / $COHR (and still partially is). But future architectures with microleds was something to keep watch for 2028 onwards... Since $CRDO was pretty focused on it with their acqusition of Hyperlume, $AMS Osram was a popular name (working with Credo too), hyperscalers like $MSFT were developing in the space too. Largan is also a $TSM COUPE supply chain player that does FAU like Foci/microlens/passive components, so they're more impartial. But yeah... was a surprise to see Largan Chairman citing concerns over "power consumption, size, and transmission efficiency" for microled commercialization and said it's unlikely to become viable. (source: Digitimes) TLDR: -> MicroLED as a technology unlikely to become viable from Largan Chairman -> If it turns out correct, indirectly positive for lasers like VCSEL, then CW/SiPH since there's some overlap for CPO scale up applications

$LITE showing the ecosystem forming around near-package optics. Open CPX founders include Ciena $CIEN, Coherent $COHR and Marvell $MRVL, alongside Molex, Samtec and TeraHop. Publicly traded contributors shown here include Credo $CRDO Intel $INTC MaxLinear $MXL Applied Optoelectronics $AAOI Astera Labs $ALAB Amphenol $APH Keysight $KEYS TE Connectivity $TEL VIAVI $VIAV Lumentum $LITE NPO reuses the existing pluggable supply chain, making it much easier to scale.

What oversupply? Even in the lower end ranges that they're focusing on, Chinese pluggable makers like Innolight are still bottlenecked for 70-100mW ranges from ECOC channel checks. Cambridge wouldn't be going out financing suppliers with convertible loans for scarce laser capacity. Suppliers wouldn't be raising ASPs if there was overcapacity. Also not all CW lasers are the same. China is a ways away from from scaling UHP lasers needed for CPO, which is why there's still premiums given to $LITE, $COHR, $SIVE. $LITE lasers are sold out into 2029 and they're starting negotiations into 2030. I don't think anyone genuinely believes that China will flood the laser markets medium term, even both $LITE / $AAOI CEO said there was a difference between comments made and what they're actually seeing. From AOI on China: "of them, they are working maybe 70 mW or very few can really do 100 mW. For 300 mW laser, especially DWDM spec, we don't see that." "Not in the next two, three years, especially the demand is so big. Okay? Even combined AOI, Lumentum, Coherent, Broadcom all together, it's still very tough to meet the customer demand in the next few years" From Lumentum last month: "At least at the moment, we see no impact from any Chinese laser supply." But whenever markets want a correction people just blindly point to China with memory or optics while ignoring what's actually occurring with demand imbalances + LTAs spanning many years and constantly extending.

Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger’s take on the transition from copper to optics in AI data centers: “To make my copper work at 5 m is more expensive than making optical work at 100 meters.” “I declared the death of copper about 25 years ago. Eventually, I’ll be right.” He sees 2028–2029 as the turning point for CPO and NPO in AI scale-up networks. $INTC $LITE $COHR

$NVDA and $CSCO just introduced a new pluggable optics standard supporting 400 Gb/s per lane and up to 6.4 Tb/s per module as AI networks demand faster connections. Nvidia is supporting both pluggable and co-packaged optics rather than replacing one with the other giving suppliers like $AAOI, $COHR and $LITE a longer runway as AI networking scales.

A catch-up brewing for $COHR? 👀 Management basically screaming SOLD OUT.