- Grutter2020: [Design Challenges for Socket Level Photonic I/O]( CPO numbers are from Lee2025: [Photonic Interconnect for Next-Generation AI Systems]( I wonder how much these foundry numbers have updated from 2020 ( Existing PIC foundries (semiconductor foundries in orange) )

my prediction on the photonics/laser stuff is, there will be more and more SiPho as we add more lanes and need better mux/demux, TFLN is not gonna win for 400G per lane although you hear it a lot, as some folks already made it working on SiPho and the TFLN price and volume won't be even close to beating SiPho. DSP will be dominated by broadcom and then marvell for a long time, but SiPho is just so much easier to design and make, and the Chinese companies will be taping out most of the SiPho chips and making all the way to various engines and modules. Laser moat of the US companies won't last long, it's not that complicated, and more similar to e.g. battery optimization than complex digital circuit design, and Chinese companies already make most of the andriod and lidar vcsel chips, some of them pretty high power and spec. They control most of In and InP production as well. US laser companies will have to and are already building InP fabs in SEA, theres no In or In purification in the US. If I know more chemistry, I would start an ITO recycling company now.