MTSIMACOM Technology Solutions
5Bull1Bear21Mention
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
MTSI is net bullish (5 bull · 1 bear)
MACOM Technology is experiencing extreme demand imbalances in optical components due to AI-driven supply shortages, pointing to a multi-year supercycle.
Last spoke: 08/25/2026, 09:46 · conviction 9/10
8-10 confidence views use larger markers▲ Bull▼ Bear● Mention
View History (27, 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.
- Good question, it's mainly third party commentary + actions around $SIVE. Ayar probably speaks volumes to me most removing $LITE / $MTSI from their supply chain section of their site. Then just featuring Sivers by itself for the laser suppliers. VP at Ayar also said Sivers was ... "essential to powering our optical I/O solution", which is pretty high signal commentary. Then you have $JBL that built a 1.6T LRO after selecting Sivers, which is very rare. And bragged about their technological moat at one of the fireside chats. Then $GFS choosing Sivers as the reference laser too and featuring them in their presentations... Feels like all your leading players are moving forward with Sivers for some reason? And I'd assume these leading companies did their DD
- @adiradir734145 I think markets just need to let the masterchef $SIVE cook. From other earnings, everyone seems to be going out and approaching players like $MTSI or $AAOI for agreements. So, seems like there's a decently high chance Sivers gets some new qualifications or co-developments.
- Very positive. My opinion is that the optical sector underperformance recently from $AAOI to $SIVE has been absurd. The demand visibility... is just way too stupidly high. AOI: “Even combined AOI, Coherent program altogether, is still very tough to meet the customer demand in the next 3 years” (2029) Elazr GM: "entire optical supply chain was facing major shortages." "The shortage will continue to the next few years" Sivers CEO said the same thing about InP laser demand imbalances expected for the next 3-5 years. Can go on and on about $LITE, $MTSI and other comments. We haven't even hit the inflection point with 1.6T, NPO, CPO scale out/up, and optics with memory (as seen with SK Hynix). Yet the industry is already bottlenecked by EML/CW and all your other upstream components from PDs/TIA/DSPs, transceivers, and soon FAU + others when CPO scales… I'm personally extremely comfortable watching this all play out, but just a little confused that markets don't know how to math a year or two ahead.
- We got $LITE, $MTSI, $AAOI all pointing to extreme demand imbalances with lasers/TIA/DSP/etc from earnings... And now Elazr GM at their investor conference stated: Optical supply is still far behind the market demand, the expected AI optical supply chain are likely to continue for years. - "the entire supply chain is out of stock" - "the supply is still far behind the market demand" - "the shortage will continue to the next few years" "Whether it is PCB, carrier board, laser chip, or even related packaging capacity, as long as the AI supply chain link, almost all are in short supply." When demand visibility extends for years with the supply chain bottlenecked: It's getting difficult not to see photonics echoing the memory supercycle entering 2027.
- 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'm not sure if it's just me, but I'm just seeing enormous CW demand imbalance right now (thank you $NVDA). And this is before scale up and other 1.6T ramps even arrive. Then you have $AAOI and $SIVE appear with scarce, independent CW laser or transceiver capacity... That usually leads forces your other major players like $AMD and hyperscalers to look at them. $MTSI said their capacity only starts to come online H2 2027 and customers are already approaching them with urgency... CW lasers is one of my favorite bottlenecks right now.
- Feels like my $IQE thesis Feb this year got validated alongside $AXTI and others. (I still long on both) So I stopped covering them as much. But TLDR on updates: Early this year, IQE was a distressed but critical chokepoint in the optical supply chain with links to $LITE and others when I published my thesis on it. Since then: - $MTSI signed long term epiwafer supply agreements, took a stake in the company, now IQE is bank debt free (Macom has convertibles, but that's positive) - $TSEM signed agreements for InP epiwafers. - Management explicitly said its IQE agreement was signed to secure the "strategic III-V epiwafer supply required for that roadmap" - IQE signed another ~$14M mysterious AI DC contract. The only part that's still playing out with my earlier thesis is IQE converting their latent/underutilized capacity toward AI DC segment, to match peers like Landmark in the space (which takes time, like slightly over a year if I remember correctly). There's some national security implications that I'll avoid talking about that makes them more important. But basically: FY2025 revenue: £97.3m FY2026 guidance: over £126.5m They're rapidly growing again in the optical sector, out of bank debt/distressed liquidation state, and remains a critical chokepoint in Western optical supply chains. Now... with new agreements with your leading photonics companies for revenue growth, and players like Macom serving as a soft backstop. After a thesis gets validated, typically I just sit back and enjoy growth of a business.
- 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.
- I’m actually kinda curious about $SIVE securing more foundry allocation given widespread CW DFB shortages now. Since I’m pretty confident it sells out once qualifications go into volume ramp. But aside from that > reaffirm demand/supply imbalance from other earnings like $MTSI / $AAOI helps > new development/qualifications mentioned in previous earnings with pluggable players, probably most material > Progress with $JBL, ~ $AEVA, $POET, $GFS or other opportunities, maybe initial POs would be nice. > Nasdaq listing update reiterated (we already got updates it’s planned completion next few quarters). I still place that on priority personally since it unlocks more funding for their M&A efforts, hopefully down the pluggable stack. I think the revenue inflection starts around H1 2027, so current revenue/profit numbers are not very material. An $AAOI statement like anything we make we expect to be sold in 2028 or something would be kinda goated.
- Some more TLDR takeaways from $AAOI ER: - They also flagged DSP and TIA bottlenecks, which is a positive industry read through for names like $MXL, then $SMTC and $MTSI. - For revenue growth, they're expecting more than $500 million revenue Q4, which is absurd growth. For reference: Q2: $191.9M Q3: ~$255M-$290M Q4: $500M+ By mid-2027: ~$1.41B quarterly revenue run-rate Always impressed by the revenue ramp from some of these optical players.
- $MTSI earnings transcript: "Customers are coming to us with urgency due to the general supply shortage of indium phosphide DFB lasers" Emphasis on "Urgency", CW "DFB lasers", "coming to us". CW DFB names, such as like $SIVE and $LITE should be happy to hear about this laser bottleneck getting validated.
- $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.
- $SPCX / Elon Musk acquires Mesh, an optical networking startup. Which is working on 1.6T OSFP (pluggable). It’s seems they own the optical engine/packaging side of things, but likely sources CW DFB lasers off merchant companies. $SIVE is one of the more startup friendly plausible merchant suppliers as seen with Ayar to $POET? Maybe $LITE and $MTSI that were have a little history too, but less so. Regardless it’s very positive a lot of startups recently like Celestial have been acquired by Marvell. For both merchant laser supplier revenue (working with startups -> having hyperscalers like SpaceX drive revenue after being designed in already). As well as valuations from M&A desirability. Goes to show how optical interconnects is the right direction if Elon Musk is directly buying these companies.
- 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.
- Ayar started off multi-sourcing with $MTSI and $LITE. Then removed them from their website and likely made $SIVE primary source (likely for first gen). It's every hyperscaler supplier intention to multi-source, there's nothing material being added there. Ayar is one of the bigger CPO players, but if CPO mapping is correct more revenue should come from $MRVL Celestial, maybe Lightmatter/Lightelligence. Ayar is also just one customer of many... This is not even including $JBL + other pluggable players that use $SIVE. Or even O-Net producing ELS with $SIVE for Asian supply chains. Nobody can accurately estimate revenues right now, it's just that they've been qualified into so many different hyperscaler supply chains like what I've done previously with $AAOI or $AEHR. That when volume ramp happens... And it's a hyperscaler supplier, you expect revenue numbers to be extremely material.
- Wow, $IQE and $TSEM sign a multi year InP epiwafer deal. Remember I told you all IQE was important to Western optical supply chains back at $12? $MTSI had to go out of their way to secure their supply with IQE. Now there’s another critical deal with Tower Semi. https://t.co/4A5PAuA3PU
- VPEC new price hikes on Epiwafers today. Positive bottleneck read through on companies like $IQE and Landmark (3081) in terms of pricing power/demand for epiwafers. This follows $MTSI investment into IQE to secure capacity, and shows how important some of these chokepoints are. (disclosure: have positions in IQE)
- Not all dilution is bad and depends on what structure. If you're doing a $600m ATM to build out laser fab capacity with $AAOI for $471m / month H1 2027 (at lower MC ranges), then that's accretive. If you're diluting 15% for NASDAQ listing requirements with $SIVE, and using proceeds for M&A, that's accretive. If you're diluting with $IQE and doing private placements with $MTSI to wipe off old toxic debt, that's accretive. If you're diluting $6,000,000,000 with $IREN, and likely selling that into the open market on every rally off the backs of $SLNH / $BKKT shills where majority of those retail went to 0, then that's predatory.
- It’s a bit hard for major companies to go about acquiring CHIPS act funded companies like $SIVE on a whim. Or $IQE with gov ties. Lot of the venture arms just miss it sometimes too. $MTSI took a stake in IQE so that’s another path. Maybe $GFS or $JBL takes a stake in $SIVE following June’s vote.
- $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.
- GUESS WHAT ANON? After today’s new news with Ayar joining Nvidia NVLink fusion. $SIVE is now the laser source for likely: The entire Nvidia’s NVLink CPO listed supply chain ecosystem partners. From Marvell Celestial, Lightmatter, and now Ayar today (the three listed in NVLink CPO). This is why I call $SIVE a structural photonics laser chokepoint over CPO and now Nvidia ecosystem supply chains. -> Celestial was likely a direct customer to Sivers, not through Poet. (2023 investor presentation mapping), then bought by Marvell. -> Lightmatter was also listed there as a customer in 2023 investor presentation deck mapping. And… Guess what else? Then they all happen to use GlobalFoundries. Which Sivers is now the GFS silicon photonics foundry-level reference laser (also new news yesterday). Supply chain mapping all starting to make sense now anon? Sivers is also likely now the primary laser source for Ayar after they removed Macom/Lumentum their laser supply chain section (now just gfs/sivers), as a cherry on top. Algorithms completely miss this type of image based mapping. After this announcement, I personally think current valuations are very undervalued: Given Sivers now holds one of the most important structural laser chokepoint over Nvidia CPO NVLink ecosystem supply chains.
- They’re stupid? $JBL announced demand > supply for their 1.6T LRO and this signals mass production on $SIVE lasers. Ayar raised $500m for volume ramp and dropped $LITE and $MTSI for $SIVE as primary. $AMD went with $GFS and have a high chance cw of using sivers for their CPO program. Sivers also signaled M&A which expands TAM a ton downstream
- $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.
- I’m not selling a single share of $SIVE. I personally think it’s a once-a-generation long given how many hyperscaler suppliers they’re already in. Coupled with GS extreme TAM expansion projections for both pluggables and CPO in the next 2 years. If you didn’t read the $JBL fireside transcript by now validating demand/timeline. Or the fact Ayar removed Lumentum and Macom from their website as laser suppliers validating moat. Or literal CHIPS ACT funding validating technological importance. Or that management is literally doing everything right in my view, with NASDAQ listing into M&A focus, validating forward growth vision. Upside is just way too compelling at current valuations. Institutions have barely entered yet as well… and we’re about to see tens of millions of passive, long term new inflow next month from Nasdaq, Blackrock, MSCI indexes.
Ongoing takes on other optical names too
Beyond MTSI, his viewpoint library also covers: