COHRCoherent Corp
12Bull0Bear26Mention

Serenity @aleabitoreddit
Focused on AI photonics and semiconductor supply chains — sourcing asymmetric setups from bottoms-up value-chain research. Tracks CPO & optical modules closely, with ongoing deep-dives on SIVE, AAOI, LITE, POET.
Quick verdict
COHR is net bullish (12 bull · 0 bear)
COHR is extremely bullish as its earnings signal an earlier-than-expected Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) scale-up timeframe.
Last spoke: 08/25/2026, 09:46 · conviction 9/10
8-10 confidence views use larger markers▲ Bull▼ Bear● Mention
View History (38, newest first)
- Lot of people were wondering about $SIVE earnings in 2 days. What I'm watching out for: 1. I'm hoping for more visibility on photonics co-development/qualifications/contracts. -> $AAOI stated multiple customers approaching them for CPO lasers (but had to turn them away) -> $MTSI stated many customers approaching them for CW capacity (but doesn't come online until H2 2027) So read through for a company serving as $GFS reference laser, $JBL for pluggables (ex. intel siph), to Ayar for CPO. And in a merchant position: -> with independent CW DFB supply (with Win semi) -> CPO-grade lasers. Is incredibly positive for more customers approaching Sivers. 2. Ongoing developments turning into volume -> I'm most excited about $JBL, which would probably be the main revenue ramp in H1 2027. -> $AEVA is likely much smaller in comparison, but should be a contributor H2 2026. -> Ayar and optical I/O players already stated 2028 for HVM, so not really expecting much there. -> Co-developments from their other pluggable players (from last ER) turning into qualifications -> volume). Aside from that: 3. NASDAQ listing -> We already got timelines for that "next few quarters", so it's not really a focus to narrow that down further. Always nice to get an update. 4. Financials -> Again, current financials aren't a focus for qualification-cycle players. Just a heads up, there's some one-time accounting this quarter, which affects things optically. Main thing is volume ramps for future quarters. -> revenue pipeline increase -> any early volume contracts signed Balance sheet concerns should be cleared now given their recent $70m fundraising + bootstrap dilution overhang gone. Bonus cookies: -> Any information about allocations secured "eg. we have substantial CW capacity secured -> would be extremely high signal given current shortages. -> Reiterate demand that AOI, Macom, Lumentum, Coherent stated. "eg. any capacity we get would be filled from demand" $AAOI had their massive $30 -> $220 rally after they stated like $471M expected capacity in 2027, and reiterated that into revenue guidance. (but then had a lot of ATMs) An ambitious bull case + full capacity revenue statement for future timelines like H1 2028 for Sivers would be nice, but not expected. A further re-rating would help for M&A with a Cloud Light type acquisition for revenue acceleration in future earnings. Obviously Sivers has other volume ramps, but I think photonics is what the market is primarily underwriting. Regardless, excited for what's up and coming.
- Not exactly, I think $AAOI stated they avoided LTAs so they wouldn't have too much capacity committed to one customer and have to turn away others. If they signed LTAs with prepayments, then that in scenario there probably wouldn't need to be such sizeable ATMs. Decision was a bit surprising though considering how well $NVDA LTAs turned out well for $LITE / $COHR. I would assume though AOI gets more pricing leverage as time goes on due to current laser/transceiver shortages.
- The AI semi theme is down if you look at $AVGO to $TSM. Higher beta names seem to have been hit the hardest. From trends I've seen with optical names, $LITE / $COHR recovered fastest, then larger still high beta names like $AAOI / $AXTI (halfway). Then your $SIVE / $POET type names have taken the longest. But I do see a sharper recovery when markets are more risk-on or when earnings forces re-ratings.
- As for names Jensen / Nvidia directly invested in: - $MRVL (Celestial), $LITE, $COHR for photonics... - $CCXI (Agility) for humanoids. I tend to do more complex investing, for my own thought process: -> I know CPO theme is coming next -> Nvidia secures all CW laser capacity. -> Maybe, $AAOI, $MTSI, $AVGO, $SIVE, $SMTC are remaining CW western players. -> $SIVE probably the highest-beta exposure. SO that was my personal long. Can probably do something similar for the other themes.
- I feel like AI investing is simpler than what people expect. Because $NVDA + Jensen literally tells everyone what's coming. But somehow. Almost every. single. time. Markets dismiss it until it actually happens? Be Nvidia in 2025: Buys up EML and laser capacity. Markets dismissing it: "Photonics is a bubble and like quantum! ____ company is a scam with shady management" 1 year later: $LITE +678%, $AAOI +475.12%, $COHR +260.7%, $AXTI +3,843.9%. _ Nvidia in 2026: Buys up CW/EML capacity with LTAs. 800V shift. Extraordinary explicit about CPO shift. States Physical AI as the next theme. Markets now: "CW players are meme stocks! 800v, CPO is not coming anytime soon, Humanoids are not profitable!" Yeah... We'll see what happens in 2027. I think I'm putting my money on Jensen/Nvidia as the leading indicator.
- @JoelLikesTurtle That's literally the earliest timeframe possible for CPO scale up early volumes if you look at $LITE and $COHR earnings. And giving that specific timeframe is actually extremely bullish.
- My main takeaway was that your merchant CW laser suppliers seem to be EXTREMELY IMPORTANT now. But TLDR of $COHR earnings: "given the demand that we see in our DC business with transceivers, I don’t see any time in the near future where we would be selling indium phosphide lasers externally" - Ton more value placed on companies that sell InP lasers externally if $AAOI can't doesn't enough capacity for first gen-CPO deployments, $COHR not selling externally... I guess that's why $MTSI said a ton of customers are approaching them with urgency for InP CW DFB lasers (and they dont even have meaningful capacity coming online until EOY 2027) $AAOI -> Internal $COHR -> Internal Buyers -> fewer places to look for capacity. "Our backlog now extends out, fiscal 2027 is basically completely booked out. We are booked really through the end of calendar 2027" [ Massive massive demand visibility] - Coherent also mentioned LTAs spanning end of decade. So this kinda reinforces what $POET CEO said at their AGM that the "big 3" are fully sold out next 2 years. "we’re not constrained in the assembly and test capacity right now. We’re really just constrained by the ramp of the indium phosphide production" - Just for the bottleneck bros in terms of assembly/test not a bottleneck. "absolutely no push-out of CPO demand. In fact, it has been the opposite. We have seen demand increase and request from customers’ demand getting pulled in" "we continue to expect revenue from CPO for scale-up applications to start to flow in the second half of calendar 2027" - Big read through on other CPO players for scale up if $LITE, $COHR reaffirm revenue from CPO scale up coming h2027. - "quarterly revenue exceeding $3 billion by the end of fiscal 2027" - $COHR revenue go brrr So for regular numbers it's: - $2.046B revenue (+13.3% Q/Q, +33.8% Y/Y), main revenue ramp looks to be happening entering Q4 into 2027 - Non-GAAP gross margins: 40.2% Next quarter guide is: - Revenue: $2.2–$2.4B revenue - Non-GAAP gross margins: 39.5-41.5% Basically: $1.69B -> $1.81B -> $2.05B -> ~$2.30B -> $3.0B (end of FY 2027) ~39% -> 39.6% -> 40.2% -> ~40.5% (gross margins) For operating margins: 18.0% -> 19.5% -> 19.9% -> 20.3% -> 21.8% Little less impressed compared to $LITE margin growth in terms of profitability, but revenue scale for $COHR growing rapidly.
- @LightLogix Yeah looking at $COHR earnings now, pretty excited about the implications, will post soon
- - Because newer 1.6T optical transceivers and CPO volumes haven't ramped yet. $SIVE is targeting all the next generation optical shifts. This comes from a misunderstanding of architectural shifts, you won't get 9 figure revenue in 2024 if customer CPO scale up deployments start in 2028. - $SIVE has 130+ employees and if I remember correctly, 1/4th to 1/3d were PHDs. Lot of what they do is IP and they use Win Semi, external foundries for volume ramp. If they did assembly like $FN or $COHR, you would see employee count balloon. Not quite sure why you say a customer supplying to $JBL, $GFS, Ayar, $POET, and many other hyperscaler suppliers is a hopeless case. Probably one of the most unique ones I've seen.
- $LITE earnings are out, very strong earnings: Revenue: $1.01B, +24.5% Q/Q, +109.3% Y/Y growth vs. ~$984.6M Adj. EPS: $3.23 vs. ~$2.95 Gross Margin (non-gaap): 50.4% / Operating margin (non-gaap) 36.6% Q1 FY2027 guidance is probably more important: Revenue: $1.225–1.275B vs. ~$1.16B Adj. EPS: $4.05–4.35 vs. ~$3.63 Operating margin (non-gaap) of 39.5% - 40.5% In terms of notes: Sees: "Increasing demand for ultra-high-power CPO lasers, an initial order for ELS modules" - Great read through on other CPO players like $SIVEF, $COHR, and others. (maybe not AAOI since they're missing out on first-gen deployments) - "Breath of NPO engagements are the first signs that optics are starting to penetrate in-rack connectivity, significantly upping our optical TAM" - Revenue projections "reaching our target model more than a quarter ahead of schedule." Extremely strong earnings as expected, you have revenue going from: $808M -> $1.01B -> $1.25B while operating margin keeps increasing... Just my first impressions. Most important thing is the earnings call coming up soon.
- I'm extremely bullish on $AAOI, it's one of my top holdings? But there's an unholy amount of things to unpack when AOI said they're not participating in first-gen CPO deployments because there's not enough capacity. 1. Independent CW DFB capacity, even less than markets thought. 2. Qualified CPO laser players, even less than markets thought. 3. I remember Rosenblatt thought $AAOI would be $AMD's first CPO customer, but might not be the case anymore... And since $LITE and $COHR are in camp $NVDA and sold out for next 2 years... Some other CPO players might be more valuable than others think.
- Just some TLDR notes on $AAOI earnings: - Expects full qualification of 1.6T products by their hyperscaler customer within next couple of weeks (helpful revenue ramp #2, timelines) - Continues to believe that AOI will have the largest AI DC transceiver production capacity in the US (reiterating ambitions during a time when their competitors might get banned) - Expects facilities toward InP capacity to come online in early 2027 (timeline FYI in terms of further ramp) - Total capacity is approaching 200,000/u per month, EOY 650,000/u per month of 800g/1.6t. EOY 2027, 930,000/u (this is the ramp i want to see) - "increase our manufacturing capacity for our external light source or ELSFP. That's for co-packaged optics or CPO". we anticipate ramping production later this year and into 2027, ultimately culminating in about 400,000 pieces per month in 2028 (need some time to model this into revenue) - "As we have mentioned before, we've been manufacturing lasers internally for many years. This has allowed us to avoid some of the shortages that have affected others in the industry" (vertical integration bull case during CW/EML laser shortages) - We believe that in the future, CPO will continue to drive increased demand for high-power lasers (thesis validation on CPO sector) - "to our long-term objective of returning non-GAAP gross margins to around 40%" - "We ended the second quarter with $508.8 million in total cash equivalents" I need to double check if the ATM finished or not - "our ability to deliver revenue in general, and specifically when it comes to 800G products, is limited by our production capacity right now" "If we could produce more, we could ship more right now" Demand > Supply validation. - "Most of the increased capacity will be in U.S. Even so, let me say that, like I keep emphasizing, that is not good enough for the customer demand. The customer demand is 20%-40% higher." Unholy photonics demand validation across the whole sector, read through for $LITE, $SIVE / $JBL, and others is amazing. - "Not in the next two, three years, especially the demand is so big. Okay? Even combined AI, $LITE, $COHR, $AVGO all together, it's still very tough to meet the customer demand in the next few years" More optical sector demand validation. - CPO Timelines: "If you're talking about really high volume manufacturer [for CPO market], I would say more like the late Q3 next year" and "We have been working very close with at least five customer" If you care about current earnings (which I'm not really looking at closely) Revenue: $191M vs. $190m EPS: $.06 vs. $.02 TLDR: Extraordinary demand across the laser + optical sector read through. Kinda supporting Lumentum CEO statement that laser shortage is worse than memory shortages. 2027 capacity ramp on track. To map inflection period with timelines, would be around early next year, as stated in their previous earnings call. AAOI has the customers now. Limitation is making enough lasers and transceivers.
- $AAOI is an end of H1 2027 volume ramp player for me, since around then is when they hit inflection point of $471m/month revenue projections. Recent drafted ban on new optical transceivers coming from Innolight and others, increase weight on players like AAOI, $SIVE / $JBL, $LITE, $COHR for their 1.6T+ programs as well. Especially if finalized in 2026. Since there's likely going to be price hikes, and more demand concentration over capacity from the select few Western players.
- $LITE CEO Michael Hurlston at the RAISE Summit warned that the supply gap for InP lasers for AI DCs: Is facing a more severe supply chain crisis than memory. And with Lumentum's 5 InP fabs, shipments would be more than 30%+ below customer demand. This is especially visible with EMLs today but is already expanding to CW, especially as CPO ramps. I've always been a fan of the laser chokepoint + bottleneck from $AAOI, $SIVE, $LITE, and $COHR. And glad this thesis is starting to see validation.
- $AXTI secured LTA with $COHR earlier, with a $22.3M reservation payment. As well as a LTA with $LITE today, totaling $87M ($43.5M + $43.5M) again to reserve capacity. Considering that these are both of the two leading optical players, seems positive. The actual details such as pricing of the contracts aren't known, so we'll find out more.
- @Thomus0x eh, Rosenblatt June 30 note identified AMD as the likely first $AAOI CPO customer. I wouldn't quite say they aren't remotely close. $LITE / $COHR / $SIVE just look like your top 3 right now in terms of CPO laser visibility per the recent Morgan Stanley note.
- Morgan Stanley listed $SIVE as the three core CPO laser players alongside $LITE and $COHR in their note 3 days ago. Fidelity Research, JP Morgan and others have started to take active positions. They recently raised an oversubscribed institutional round at 57 SEK. This is all ahead of US NASDAQ listing. I personally see short term liquidity disconnects relative to forward revenue around now and I'm sure institutions are capitalizing on it.
- Lot of people were curious about $SIVE capacity volume ramp modeling through fab-light (Win Semi + others): Using 10% of Win's wafer capacity as a low-end allocation (65% yield assumption, $50-$75 ASP): Sivers would support $341-$512M worth of annual array revenue. Given upper end of managements 50-60%+ gross margin target, would be roughly: $205–307M of annual gross profit. Against Sivers current ~$1.1B MC, would be ~: 3.6–5.4× MC/gross profit if this capacity scenario plays out in 2028. And at 15% would be $307–461M in gross profit (2.4–3.6× MC/gross profit) Sivers CEO also replied that they're working with more fabs for capacity. And from an older deck, there looks to be more qualifications since 2024. So capacity targets might be larger than what's stated here as CPO takes off. I also expect to see revenue pipeline projections hiked in future quarters, as more qualification suppliers to into HVM. _ As for demand side, CW also happens to be very bottlenecked. Lumentum are buying CW off the open market due to EML obligations from their ER transcript. And $AMD are signing LTAs to secure CW capacity (from Trendforce). So when Sivers is ramping with $GFS, $JBL, Ayar, $POET, O-NET and others... Given the current constraints, it's highly likely any independent qualified capacity that comes online would be absorbed. And as a cherry on top, Morgan Stanley named $SIVE (~$1.1B) as one of the three leading CPO laser players . Alongside $55B+ players Coherent and Lumentum in their recent note for a reason... _ TLDR: Sivers only needs a low end allocation from Win to make substantial gross income relative to current valuations. I think the largest revenue upside that isn't modeled in if they TAM expansion with M&A after US NASDAQ listing. By copying the Lumentum playbook with Cloud Light to build out entire transceiver modules or with optical engines.
- I don't see any fundamentally wrong. There's probably going to be large corrections from time to time flush out margin/leverage before things move higher. And this month seems like that time of year? $POET confirmed your big optical giants like $LITE, $COHR are completely sold out for the next 2 years, and likely into 2029 for photonics. Innolight confirmed 800g transceiver upward revisions 3 days ago, so that should be positive for $AAOI and the others. Samsung became the most profitable company in the world, and continues to project DRAM hikes for future quarters. $MU signed 16+ LTAs showing memory demand is structural... $META + hyperscaler capex plans are on the higher end of projections. I wouldn't conflate short term price movements with longer term trends. And as seen with $AEHR, recoveries tend to be extremely fast (eg. 1M of corrections wiped out overnight).
- Feels like algos often miss $SIVE, after slight $LITE / optical sector recovery after CPI print. Especially bc it's trading on some random Swedish exchange, but catches up on random days. That being said it's definitely on institutional radar, especially since MS put it next to $LITE and $COHR as the three leading CPO laser companies yesterday. Just waiting for things to play out, stocks don't move in a straight line up every day.
- TLDR of Innolight investor relations takeaways: 1. "Overall, 1.6T market demand has not contracted; instead, 800G demand has increased significantly compared with previous expectations" Prob most important takeaway as a whole was 800G demand revision (also longer tail demand). Which is a bullish read through on US transceiver makers like $AAOI, $COHR, $LITE. Lot of new customers like neoclouds, AI model companies, contributing to overall demand rather than just hyperscalers, diversification always a bonus. 2. Innolight said the shortage covers the module supply chain broadly including: - Optical chips. - Electrical chips. - PCBs. - Other module materials From last ER, I think they singled out EMLs and CW optical chips as the most constrained. So Innolight's bottleneck list mention broadened since then. They expect some of the component availability to improve gradually from the second half of 2026 through the first half of 2027. Think a lot of this is already known from earlier though. But just some confirmation + easing timelines (EML is extremely bottlenecked, same with CW, this is probably talking about other components). 3. Innolight said module-production equipment is not the constraint. Equipment lead times remain relatively short. So this isn't really a bottleneck compared to others. 4. The overall proportion of silicon photonics continues to trend upward. Last year it was mainly 800G. This year, some 800G customers are further increasing their silicon-photonics proportion. 1.6T also added some new customers Positive for SiPH penetration eg. $SIVE / $JBL, since this shifts away from EML toward CW. Basically: main surprising takeaway is just 800g demand go brrr. Apart from that just reaffirming bottlenecks/timelines/market speculation.
- $AAOI mainly gets revenue from pluggable, they’re developing/sampling related lasers but have no CPO design wins. Others like $MTSI look like they fell off the map for some reason with cpo lasers. CEO says “TBD” with commercial timing and it’s in reliability work right now. And fits the OSINT research done with Ayar removing Macom from their website. So would agree with MS that $SIVE, $LITE, $COHR imo are the three leaders to focus on for lasers.
- $AXTI signs 3-year wafer deal with $COHR. "Coherent will make a prepayment of $22,288,500 to AXT-Tongmei in exchange for a committed supply capacity." https://t.co/nTkyJSMo96
- Photonics is backed by actual revenue numbers and it's an architectural shift championed by $NVDA. Quantum barely has any revenue. $LITE is completely sold out for the next 2 years (per $POET AGM) likely starting into 2029. Lumentum is so strained that they buy CW lasers off competitors (earnings transcript) $COHR is bottlenecked, so they buy EML off Lumentum. Then, $AAOI is coming in with Made-in-America independent CW capacity, are projecting $1.4B/quarterly revenue ending H1 2027 of a stupid $9.3B MC today. So all the CW capacity from independent players who have it now like $AAOI or $SIVE are likely to become scarce resources. Many other hyperscalers have already started LTA discussions (per Trendforce). And players like $AMD are currently talking with players such as $AAOI (Rosenblatt channel checks). Thematically, next 2 years is 9x TAM to US$154B per GS reports, especially with 16x/45x dollar content increase in scale out/scale up. Then there's the overall thematic AI drop from $META, which is widely misunderstood because people conflate what "excess capacity" means. And as UBS mentioned, Meta planning a cloud offering is NOT NEW NEWS. Bloomberg just has a tendency to publish information that causes doom drops across the semi sector like Nvidia export controls a few months back. But I'm familiar with what I'm holding so I'm confident in these numbers playing out. Especially when all the major players are sold out, the fundamentals catch up eventually.
- @SaiseiInvesting No, 0 clue why people invest in those types of ETFs. - You have the most basic names you can buy yourself like $LITE / $COHR as heaviest weights, where they take management fees. - Names not adjacent to AI DCs.
- We're in a massive EML bottleneck right now and CW lasers are getting bottlenecked now too. To my knowledge, $COHR is buying EMLs off $LITE because they can't make enough. $LITE is majority allocated to EML, so they can't make enough CW lasers. So they're buying CW lasers off competitors from their ER transcript, (probably Sumitomo, Furukawa and others), which likely feeds into $NVDA contracts. Then $AMD and your hyperscalers need capacity too but we're already in a shortage. Any capacity that comes online would likely be bought, since looks like we're in a shortage for next few years (lumentum already sold out into 2028). Not quite the same as your sk hynix/samsung/micron memory dynamic but there's still a massive moat with EML with probably only single digit amounts of players able to do this.
- I've been getting a lot of questions about OE Solutions (138080) recently. Here's my research/thoughts so far on it: They're a small Korean optical transceiver company, similar to $AAOI. And they've become one the few EML players in the world (eg. $COHR, $LITE, Mitsubishi, Source, Sumitomo), with scarce 100G EML laser capacity for 800G/1.6T. OE appears to be trying to make the full transceiver, not just the EML. They also have finished ELSFP CPO products, with UHP CW lasers, which is sampling Q3. Likewise, OE also seems to be building out the full ELSFP, rather than selling CW laser dies, so that's more market share. So you can think of it as Korean AAOI but EML instead of CW, and less capacity/qualifications. And playing catch-up to the rest of the world. However in terms of timelines: 1. 23dBm cooled ELSFP samples start in Q3 2026 2. Sales base for 800G, and 2027 1.6T "full force" 3. Late H2 2027, H1 2028 onward probably their ELSFP enters the volume production. And it seems they're working on 200G EML capability from their investor snipper 2025 OE IR snippet referenced “100GBaud EML / 200G PAM". This seems promising given their IP/demos. ELS has just been unveiled recently, sampling starts Q3. 800G/1.6T Optical transceivers are also likely 2027. So this is basically Korea's sovereign photonics player, playing catchup to $LITE, $AAOI, and the bigger players. (Disclosure: I have positions in OE Solutions (138080). This is fundamental research for informational purposes, not financial advice). As for OE solution valuations: 1. Doesn't seem like there's confirmed customers yet for these growth verticals. 2. Probably not many people understood what they're building toward yet. 3. Yields data kinda uncertain 1. Customers: We're actually in a major EML/CW laser shortage, so any independent capacity will be sought after. I personally don't think they'll have a hard time finding customers here. I would assume anything they make might get bought out and would get extra support from Korea. 2. Institutional support: Probably not much since it doesn't meet threshold for many US institution given MC size + KR listing. I also don't think many people understood what they're building yet. 3. Yields/Capacity: OE's disclosed wafer/module utilization is low (i remember was around 31% underutilized off the top of my head), so there's enough material revenue they can generate before they need to spend on capex. I'm also not sure about EML/CW and other yields. Probably need to go ask the company. Is this some random crap co? No. It's been doing optical transceivers stuff for more than 20Y, has R&D in the U.S. and Netherlands. But their entire AI growth vertical seems to happen next year, and hinges mainly around capacity/yields. And I personally think the EML/CW tech is probably worth a lot more than their current MC, if it were an acquisition target. Especially from a larger player that wanted to vertically integrate EML for pluggables and CW lasers for CPO. Markets are probably waiting on more certainty around qualifications after Q3 sampling or earnings projections announcements. TLDR on thoughts: Some of my friends discussed this last year, was probably way too early. Saw it got many comments 2 months ago, still too early. I still think now is early, but later in Q3-Q4 might be more interesting. I personally think it's a lot higher risk than a major CPO player like $SIVE, that's embedded in Ayar, $JBL, $GFS, and many other hyperscaler suppliers. Which also has Win Semi and others de-risking volume ramp. As OE Solutions looks like a new player trying to build out an $AAOI for the optical transceivers but sovereign EML and CW laser production for CPO products. And there's a lot of answered questions around customers + volume ramp, which presents material risk. But if you believe Korea can build out an 800G/1.6T transceiver EML supply chain and ELSFP with CW lasers. With OE Solutions, it might be worth taking a look into. Still researching the company tho, just initial thoughts.
- Yes, choosing the right theme is extremely important. Even if $POET doesn't really do anything, it still gets brought up thematically due to $LITE, $COHR, and others. Even if $RDDT outperforms extremely hard, it still gets brought down from $META, $MSFT, $CRM, and other software basket names.
- 非常感谢中文社区对我最看好股票的投资思路进行的深度剖析! 总的来说,像 $AAOI 和 $SIVE 这样的激光公司是我个人的最爱,因为它们在拓展营收方面有着极大的想象空间。它们可以不仅仅局限于销售激光器,还能制造完整的光模块 以及各种光引擎或 ELS (外部光源) 组件。 又或者像 $COHR 那样,甚至可以向上游延伸进军衬底制造领域,从而实现垂直整合,并不断提升自身的毛利率和总潜在市场规模 TAM 这其中很大一部分的关键在于要率先精准踩中投资主线,毕竟去年很多人甚至都不觉得“光子学(photonics)”能成为一个真正的热门概念。 而且我认为最会让大多数人感到惊讶的是,我们目前仍处于极其早期的阶段。绝大多数的营收放量(爬坡)要到明年,也就是 2027 年的上半年乃至下半年才会真正开始! 不过,能看到中文社区大家持续不断的支持,真的让我感觉非常棒。我会尽我所能,不辜负大家给我起的 “白毛股神” 这个称号。
- Trendforce reports that $AMD is actively trying to secure CW laser supply with multiple major procurement orders... Is probably just the start of the bottleneck? There's not much independent capacity in Western supply chains left other than $SIVE or $AAOI and maybe Macom. Especially after Lumentum/Coherent got locked up with multi-year agreements with Nvidia. (disclosure, own Sive and aaoi) Lumentum is already CW laser constrained and is likely buying off Japanese companies like Sumitomo/Furukawa if I had to guess per ER, and those are probably running at max capacity. From the Trendforce report, this is: "to ensure that its future capacity will not be constrained by NVIDIA and other major Cloud Service Providers (CSPs)." I wouldn't be surprised if other hyperscalers like Amazon, Microsoft, and others saw Nvidia / AMD signing LTAs, and are trying to secure capacity next. A lot of it is game theory on not getting choked out by competitors, and looks like AMD is tipping the first domino after Nvidia. But my opinion is that this just goes and show how invaluable this CW laser chokepoint is and the companies are inside it.
- Other way around, $NVDA bottlenecked the entire industry for EML capacity. And did the same with CW capacity ONCE AGAIN with $LITE, $COHR, and $MRVL (if they have LTA in place with Celestial) I said this a few months ago, we'd see this exact same playbook. But $AMD, $AMZN, $META, and others are just so stupidly slow that they let themselves get bottlenecked. Now there's only a few merchant players like $AAOI, $MTSI, and $SIVE that they all need to fight over.
- New reports that $AMD is scrambling for CW laser supply. And is negotiating large-scale purchase orders for CW Lasers to ensure its production capacity is not constrained by $NVDA (Trendforce) Obvious CW laser beneficiaries: - $SIVE (AMD went to GFS for CPO, Sivers reference laser level) - $AAOI (Rosenblatt analyst checks) Lumentum/Coherent are kinda booked out way into 2028 as well. Lumentum is especially constrained for CW capacity already from existing EML contracts (so they probably are buying from Sumitomo/Furukawa and co). Maybe Macom and Japanese giants still have spare capacity. (disclosure, own aaoi/sivers). I predicted this last year and said hyperscalers should go more upstream to secure capacity... at laser levels, epiwafer levels, or even inp substrate levels. To not get bottlenecked by Nvidia.
- Names like: - $ASX - Sumitomo Electric - $JBL - $VICR - $GFS - $AAOI - AlChip - $TSEM - $FN - Furukawa Electric - $CLS - $NBIS - $NOK - $AMKR - $LITE - $COHR Off the top of my head. So basically, AI exposure trading in the $10-100B range. Likely have compelling ROI right now compared to indexes or $ARM to $MRVL that ran quite a bit? (Just a disclosure, only have financial interest in NBIS/TSEM/AAOI above) I mention a lot of smaller ideas, but that’s just to chase outsized returns. Still feels like many of these have room to go.
- hmm, i prefer all your upstream chokepoints over $NVDA long term since those will be re-rated the most (nvidia already largest company in the world) pretty sure hyperscaler ASICs would eventually siphon off $NVDA demand like $GOOGL TPU, $AMZN trainium programs. wouldn't be too positive for expontentially compounding revenue growth since hyperscalers were Nvidia's original main revenue stream (even indirect via Neoclouds). But $NVDA's kinda stalling everyone elses buildout by bottlenecking their programs eg. EML/laser capacity agreements years out too. And took stakes in $MRVL / $LITE / $COHR / $INTC etc. making them adopt to $NVDA standards or just owning a large %. So even if they're delaying other programs + their biggest growth vector kinda falls off one day, like how things are shifting already shifting to ASICs for inference. They'll still probably be fine given ownership stakes + will serve companies/countries outside of hyperscaler cash cows (just less revenue)+ made so much before then. But that's probably why p/e keeps going down despite revenues going up, since idk if markets thinks that growth will last forever. Or could be totally wrong and they just keep leapfrogging generation by generation + AI pie keeps growing with Jensen's 4T 2030 capex number.
- $SIVE looks like both a chokepoint and a bottleneck for CPO next year. Keep seeing information published from nontechnical people who miss any nuances. Here’s the reason why: 1. CW lasers are bottlenecked signaled by $LITE earnings. Laser fabs are heavily allocated to EML likely from former $NVDA contracts. -> Sumitomo/Furukawa = bottleneck -> Win Semi = bottleneck $SIVE does fab-lite, so are they a bottleneck? Yes, $SIVE sits in the laser bottleneck since control output supply of CW lasers from Win Semi and other fabs from allocation way early on (CEO stated they working with more capacity from other players as well). Perfect example is Kioxia/Sandisk. $SNDK controls NAND output, so they’re a bottleneck because they control final pricing. Demand exceeding supply from Ayar, Jabil, other pluggable vendors + Nvidia NVLink CPO ecosystem… final laser supply owned by $SIVE makes Sivers a bottleneck. $SIVE is also likely primary/sole source for Jabil, Gen-1 Ayar, $MRVL Celestial, and other hyperscaler asic/merchant CPO routes. So no way to get around it (can’t hot-swap single channel cw lasers with Sivers) 2. $SIVE is a chokepoint over CPO. $NVDA use $COHR, $LITE (which likely sources external cw capacity from Japanese competitors) $AVGO is likely vertically integrated as well. However: the entire ecosystem around it from ASIC programs (Marvell, AlChip, etc) and merchant programs (Ayar, Lightmatter, Lightelligence) Are all likely designed around $SIVE. Ayar for example, likely tried to multi-source with $MTSI / $LITE back in 2022 but their lasers probably couldn’t match the level of Sivers specification with arrays (removed Lumentum / Macom from their supply chain site recently) If there’s no alternative at least for the initial generations (obviously they’re working to multi-source). That makes $SIVE a structural chokepoint to go through for lasers. Even if you look at the 1.6T LRO $JBL designed, they achieved a “drastic moat” with performance built around $SIVE likely sole source. $SIVE is also the foundry level reference laser design for $GFS, which your hyperscalers use like $AMD (likely using Sivers + maybe Ayar for gen1): If every major player, who hasn’t achieved vertical integration (Nvidia/Broadcom) is using Sivers for CPO… That makes them a chokepoint. Just look at the entire CPO $NVDA NVLink ecosystem partners: every single one are all likely using Sivers. And they all use $GFS as well (where Sivers is default reference). So $SIVE is both a chokepoint and bottleneck when CPO really scales up H2 2027, over one of the biggest architectural shifts of all time (near $0 -> $81B or $91B TAM in the next 1 1/2 years from GS research note) This is why I say $SIVE looks like it could be the next $75B $LITE over the next couple years. All of this should play out next year. And it’s still trading less than a company with $50M in purchase agreements that buys Sivers lasers to repackage them.
- @OGCapital25 @Chi_w_wong It's expected Celestial and Lightmatter try and multi source. But maybe for gen-1 my guess is a lot sole source / primary source with $SIVE for the $NVDA CPO NVlink ecosystem. Nvidia has their own program with $LITE and $COHR.
- $SIVE is the most compelling CPO exposure stock to me. Despite the volatility. You probably won’t find something like this again until the next architectural shift in photonics years later. Out of the core laser suppliers, they’re all tens of billions? $AAOI = $15B Furukawa = $26B $MTSI = $29B Sumitomo = $59B $COHR = $73B $LITE = $74B Then there’s $SIVE as one of the core CPO laser chokepoints at $2.3B MC. Earnings are usually confirmation of all the little volume ramp hints like Jabil fireside transcripts for 1.6T LRO. And most returns are typically made before, not after official confirmation is just a rule of thumb.
- $AAOI is more pure manufacturing scale and I'm extremely bullish on them. So it's more like Furukawa + Innolight in my view? So extremely bullish for revenue ramp. $SIVE is just pure one-of-a-kind IP, where major CPO hyperscaler supplier seems to all use them, like Ayar/Celestial and others. Even $JBL made groundbreaking 1.6T LRO moats with Sivers. Sky is the limit here with Sivers and they can always vertically integrate like $COHR / $AAOI down the road too with capex spend. But their main focus right now should just creating the largest IP moat possible + outsource manufacturing to keep capex light. Can always vertically integrate the assembly, laser fab down the road too. I like them both for different reasons.
Ongoing takes on other optical names too
Beyond COHR, his viewpoint library also covers: