DB on nyt nostanut esille LPO ja CPO sarjassa: “six major tech hardware trading themes for 2026”. Ja taitaa olla ensimmäisiä analyysitahoja jotka on Nokian löytänyt tähän.
Accelerating penetration of photonics/optoelectronics, with data centers becoming the core application scenario.
Deutsche Bank stated that the explosive growth in bandwidth demand for AI data centers is driving photonics/optoelectronics technology to become the core engine of industry growth. Currently, most AI data centers use Ethernet or InfiniBand paired with pluggable optical modules, and the future will gradually transition to high-speed pluggable optical modules, Linear Pluggable Optics (LPO), and Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) to achieve lower power consumption and latency.
LPO significantly reduces power consumption and latency by replacing full DSPs with linear drivers, while CPO deploys optical engines adjacent to switches/xPUs, greatly improving energy efficiency. Both technologies are accelerating the adoption of silicon photonics (SiPho). Tower Semi plans to double its silicon photonics capacity by the end of 2025 and expand it threefold again by mid-2026, aiming for silicon photonics sales to reach $900 million in 2026, up from $105 million in 2024.
The research report highlighted that relevant companies have actively positioned themselves to capture market share. Nokia acquired its own SiPho platform through the Elenion transaction and is expanding its photonic chip plant in San Jose, increasing capacity 25-fold. Its AI data center-related orders have tripled year-to-date. Soitec’s SOI wafers dominate the low insertion loss single-mode waveguide sector and are the preferred solution for GFF otonix and TowerPH18 platforms.