Ciena & Fabrinet: The Road Ahead for Optics We look at where optics and photonics are heading, combining our industry work with conversations with management at $FN and $CIEN. Both are key players in the optical ecosystem. We partnered with @damnang2 on this piece to bring an engineering perspective that complements our investment research.

This article takes a closer look at Fabrinet ($FN) and Ciena ($CIEN), two companies that receive less attention than some of their peers in optics, but that I believe have significant potential. Their business models are very different, yet both have exposure to the same opportunity, scale-across. That connection makes them particularly interesting to examine together. The question is how each company can translate that opportunity into growth, and what investors need to understand about their respective strengths and limitations. For this piece, I partnered with Aurelion Research to pair an engineering perspective on optics with investment research grounded in detailed company analysis and conversations with management.

I’ve been working on an article called “What Comes After the CPU?” but I just can’t seem to finish it with everything else going on. If I wait much longer, it’ll probably lose its timeliness, so I’m just sharing the rough draft of the figure I made on X for now....

Being able to create iterative games in under [5-10] minutes, all seamlessly within the app, is impressive. Truly a great product! @Muse @alexandr_wang Can only imagine token usage going explosive from here…

About a month ago, one of my subscribers asked me about Meta. I told them that while I did not have a favorable view of the company from a semiconductor engineering perspective, its current valuation and strong core business made it an attractive investment. This has reminded me once again that to make money as an investor, I need to look beyond the narrow lens of engineering. $META

Today, I hosted a CPO seminar for optical experts. I spoke for about 90 minutes on why CPO is needed, how the market currently views it, the key technical bottlenecks, and what the future roadmap may look like. We also had many meaningful discussions. Some of the most interesting points from today were: 1. As we move toward CPO, test complexity will inevitably increase dramatically, and Burn In testing will become increasingly important. 2. Packaging appears to be one of the biggest challenges, from EIC and PIC stacking to thermal management and hybrid bonding. 3. For high power CW lasers, solving cooling and optical loss issues (e.g., grating couplers) inside the PIC Many participants were working mainly at the optical device level, so throughout the seminar, the recurring reaction was, “CPO is really not easy.” But we ended with the same conclusion, We will find the answer. It was a very fun and meaningful session. The seminar was based on the free articles below. If you want to understand the full context, I highly recommend reading them. I converted these articles from paid to free because I want more people to build a deeper understanding of CPO. I hope many of you find them helpful.😍

Here are some accounts I personally follow that I believe share a lot of great useful and free information to learn from: @damnang2 @KairosPraxis @saso_capital @PolarisLog @Semiconsight @OptionKing666 @joedab12 @BUZZ__tiab @MojoTricks @SVTrivo @intelfabs @semidoped @vikramskr @austinsemis @tuolaji2024 @photonjaeger @lithos_graphein @LIWEI_TWCapital @MarkosAAIG @VantixResearch

I’ve been working on an article called “What Comes After the CPU?” but I just can’t seem to finish it with everything else going on. If I wait much longer, it’ll probably lose its timeliness, so I’m just sharing the rough draft of the figure I made on X for now....

$MRVL is definitely one of my favorite names. If you want to really understand Marvell’s position in optics, I highly recommend reading this article by @PhotonCap , an optics expert who explains it exceptionally well.

Samsung and SK Hynix are using Besi hybrid bonding equipment but are also exploring other equipment suppliers, according to an expert interviewed by Damnang. I suggest you all take a read. Excellent work 👇

Finally getting around to posting this photo! Thanks to @MilksandMatcha, I had the chance to visit the Cerebras office today. The whole place had such an energetic and exciting atmosphere. And seeing the wafer scale chip in person after only seeing it in photos was honestly so cool! Thank you so much for the invitation!!