Optical Interconnects
Articles (5)

Copper Kings Buy the Fiber Layer: Credo and Molex Lock Down Silicon Photonics in 48 Hours
Two acquisitions, two days apart, at adjacent layers of the same stack. Credo's $873M cash-and-stock deal for DustPhotonics and Molex's Teramount buy tell the market the copper-era interconnect champions have decided the AI factory's fiber layer isn't something they're willing to source.
NVIDIA's $4 Billion Photonics Bet Is an Admission: The AI Buildout Has a Materials Problem
NVIDIA's $4B investment in Lumentum and Coherent signals indium phosphide scarcity and power equipment lead times are gating $2.52T AI spending forecast.
Samsung Bets Vertical Integration Can Close TSMC's Silicon Photonics Lead
Samsung launched a silicon photonics foundry platform at OFC 2026, targeting 2028 PIC mass production and 2029 CPO services, pitching vertical integration of HBM, logic, packaging, and photonics against TSMC's production lead

Electro-optic polymers hit the foundry: the materials battle for next-gen photonic interconnects
Lightwave Logic's deal with Tower Semiconductor puts polymer modulators into production silicon photonics. Meanwhile, III-V compounds are pushing 400G per lane. The fight to replace silicon's optical limitations is getting real.

NVIDIA's $4 billion photonics bet tells you where copper dies
Investments in Coherent and Lumentum, OFC 2026 timing, and the conspicuous absence of NVLink CPO. NVIDIA knows optical interconnects are the next bottleneck, and it's moving to own the solution.