Largan (3008 TT), a Taiwanese smartphone lens maker, plans to dedicate a newly completed factory to producing fiber array units (FAUs) for co-packaged optics, CNA reports. At its Oct. 8 earnings briefing, Largan said its fiber arrays (FAs) had passed qualification with one customer. That customer now wants Largan to supply complete FAUs rather than the arrays alone. Largan aims to have production capacity in place by the end of Q2 2027 and begin volume production in H2 2027. The company says gross margins will depend on production yields.

#Largan#'s 3Q26 gross margin fell to 42.21%, a 13-year low, on lower iPhone 18 variable-aperture #lens# yields and higher green power costs—Chairman Adam Lin expects orders to weaken from November, while #CPO# FA products passed qualification.💡More: 🔗

Rumor: Taiwan’s Largan Precision is set to join Nvidia’s optical communications supply chain after completing end-to-end CPO (Co-Packaged Optics) module development, media report. -Mass Production: Expected 2nd-half 2027 (potential supply for Nvidia’s Rubin Ultra platform). -Components: FAs, MLAs, and integrated Fiber Array Units (FAUs). -Demand: Nvidia Spectrum-X shipments are projected at about 20,000 units this year, requiring 600,000–700,000 FAUs for onboard optical engines alone. $NVDA $TSM #Largan#

I know everyone's focused on Nancy Pelosi copytraders sending $BE up 11.83%. Or Trump... But you know what else is cool? FAU bottlenecks for CPO. I remember saying earlier this year FAU/Foci might be a future bottleneck around $TSM / $NVDA CPO roadmaps... This was some media commentary supporting that: "It is understood that Largan Precision (3008), FOCI (3363), and China’s TFC have entered $NVDA FAU supply chain" "Based on an estimated 20,000 Spectrum-X systems shipped this year, the optical engines installed in those systems would require approximately 600k-700k FAUs" In 2027, demand is expected to reach several million units, and existing supply chain capacity is currently unable to meet demand." (UDN, mandarin -> english translation is kinda off) Cough cough, "existing supply chain capacity is currently unable to meet demand" Tad early right now since mass production is expected H2 2027, but cool to read updates around this.

Just a semi recap TLDR: - $GLW glass bridge per Morgan Stanley has potential, but hard to displace FAU (like FOCI) in short term - $SPCX Starlink Gen 3 is scaling to 100,000 units (10x prev gen) creating possible capacity constraints for suppliers of switches to CCL. - PCB supply shortages are projected to persist until 2028, and component shortages/price hikes are already forcing ODMs like Inventec to issue conservative H2 shipment - DeepSeek and Zhipu are developing custom ASICs to bypass $NVDA (kinda expected by now). - Anthropic has achieved a $30B ARR and is projected to hit >$1B in Q3 profit. Turns out these frontier labs are more profitable than people think. - US admin pressured $AAPL to source from $INTC, in exchange for tariff exception. Kinda pressuring alignment away from TSM. - $TSM plans a 30x expansion of its Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC) capacity by 2028, growing from 500 to 25,000 wafers per month - Hanmi Semiconductor is entering the CoWoS packaging equipment market - $NVDA and NTT hosting a conference July 24th to discuss CPO strategies. - 5x general NAND flash price hike this year, market size $489B by next year triggered by RAG/inference. Samsung and SK Hynix make emergency fab investments, NAND equipment suppliers go brrrr. - Gas turbine bottleneck, 40% supply gap accompanied by staggering 5-year delivery cycles (mega-fabs need them for mass production). - AI probe card assembly has hit a severe bottleneck apparently. Which is attempted to by solved with things like Innovation Service's machines. - Nanya, 79.5% gross margins reported, memory go brr. 4x capex for capacity/advanced packaging. - CXMT's STAR Market IPO on July 16, so should bring a lot of attention to memory players in that supply chain. - KYEC $1.4B investment into US for $TSM Arizona output test facilities. Lot of these players like $AMKR and others should go brr in 2028. - $INTC CEO warned last month that helium could hinder the manufacturing costs and delivery times of AI chips - 3D NAND word lines are shifting from Tungsten to Molybdenum starting at the 375-layer node - SambaNova secured JPM for AI inference and raised $1B at an $11B valuation. - HBM prices projections to double in 2027 as $NVDA Rubin platform drives demand. - $MU provides $500 million in funding to support GlobalWafers' US manufacturing capacity - $META 'Iris' will enter mass production in September via $AVGO and TSMC and Meta aims to double computing power to 14GW by 2027. - Largan Precision has secured its first CPO FAU order, mass production slated for middle of next year (kinda indication around Foci and others). - Samsung and SK Hynix have delayed the implementation of hybrid bonding packaging technology for HBM4 apparently - Memory costs (DRAM/NAND) have reached 60% of the BOM for sub-$400 smartphones, causing a severe volume contraction. - SK Hynix successfully rasied $26.5 billion through a Nasdaq ADR - $TSLA issued procurement guidelines requiring suppliers to reach weekly production of 1,000 units by September and double to 2,000-2,500 by year end for its 3rd gen Optimus robot. Apparently Alliance Technology and A-Link may be in this supply chain harmonic reducers and vision lenses? Kinda go through all this stuff every day, but don't wanna be a news reporter so just consolidated stuff I found interesting.

Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke says the new Divinity still has a long way to go before it’s ready, despite being one of the studio’s most ambitious RPGs. Larian Studios’ new Divinity still has a long way to go before release. CEO Swen Vincke says the game builds on the success of Baldur’s Gate 3 and Divinity: Original Sin 2, with much of the same development team returning. > Developed by “pretty much the same team” behind Larian’s previous RPGs, alongside new talent. > Larian says the new Divinity will be even larger than BG3. >!Vincke says it’s “built on the shoulders” of both previous games.

#LaoGanMa#, one of country's best-known chili sauce brands, has come under public scrutiny after comments about its use of artificial intelligence in quality inspection were interpreted as evidence of large-scale job cuts. #AI#

Larian CEO confirms the studio is using generative AI to "explore ideas, flesh out PowerPoint presentations, develop concept art and write placeholder text." He says there won’t be any AI-generated content in Divinity — "everything is human actors; we’re writing everything ourselves." (Source: