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Coherent CORP.

COHR

18 stories

$47B Market cap · 2026-10-29

@ParadisLabs 1 click

Paradis on X

Initial notes on $MRVL's rumoured $LITE acquisition: 1. Why?! - $LITE's CEO has said they're sold out into 2029. So do management think the InP laser shortage is shorter than what their orders suggest? Need more clarity on why Lumentum would green light this. - With lasers sold out into 2029, I think owning the fab might be the only way $MRVL can guarantee supply for FY28 growth. So maybe Marvell and Lumentum have different reads on the InP laser shortage? 2. This has to be mostly stock. - $MRVL has ~$3.9B cash vs. $5.0B debt. Combined run-rate EBITDA is circa $7-7.5B (my numbers), so I think staying investment grade caps new debt at around $15-20B. - At a ~30% premium that leaves $85-90B+ paid in stock, with $LITE holders owning ~30% of the combined company. - I feel that’s a lot of Marvell to hand over. 3. I think the strategy is much better than the reaction. - $MRVL are essentially buying the part of the optical link that survives the move to CPO which is a pretty smart hedge on their own DSP franchise. - Marvell announced Inphi around 6 years ago (~$10B in cash + stock), and that deal built the core of MRVL's optics business. - This is basically the same move just one layer down, from DSP to laser, stacked on Celestial AI. - Probably a good signal that Marvell are running the same optics playbook again? 4. Dilution. - $MRVL trades on about 52x run rate EPS. - $LITE is about 60x on its FQ1 guide at tonight's AH price and about 70x with a 30% premium. - That's ~15% dilutive to Marvell's run-rate EPS (my rough napkin math number) assuming a 30% premium, ~$17.5B of new debt at ~5%, and the rest in stock at $228. (Again, very rough numbers). - It only turns accretive if Lumentum keeps outgrowing Marvell at today's guided rates (+24% q/q vs +15%) for another five or six quarters. - I think that's achievable while the laser shortage lasts, but I feel the whole deal ends up being a bet on how long that is. 5. Fewer lasers on the open market. - If LITE's output gets prioritised for $NVDA and Marvell's own modules, everyone else buying LITE EMLs and CW lasers gets tighter allocation. - I think that's bullish for laser pricing at $COHR and for other laser sources like $SIVE (lol). - Feels like the module makers that depend on LITE lasers are the quiet losers. 6. Channel conflict. - Marvell is the leading DSP supplier to 800G/1.6T module makers, and LITE already sells its own modules through Cloud Light. - I think Innolight and Eoptolink start shifting DSP share to $AVGO and $CRDO? - I feel hyperscalers will push harder to second-source lasers from $COHR.
@aleabitoreddit 1 click

Serenity on X

$AXTI still the chokepoint of the entire optical buildout + demand for InP substrates will grow a lot. They have LTA supply agreements to $LITE / $COHR and probably ends up #1 vs. Sumitomo Electric. The main thing I'm watching is if they can pull a $SNDK style price hike. So far from some channel checks: - Q2 2026: 50-60% increase - Q3 2026: 10% increase - Q4 2026: 10%+ hike But from Coherent's SEC offering... it does look like there's a ceiling to how high % prices can go, which makes that case less likely. We'll see how it plays out
@aleabitoreddit 4 clicks

Serenity on X

$NVDA Jensen Huang on photonics: adding scale-up to optical domain, “is going to be, well, 15x” to aggregate volume. Relating to $LITE, $COHR, and laser companies.. “I'm fairly certain the amount of optics that we need in the future will be several orders of magnitude” Huang added. We’re already in a CW laser bottleneck, but given the time/rate for capacity expansion, I definitely don’t see it meeting the scale Jensen envisions… Your leading merchant suppliers focusing new capacity toward UHP CPO lasers might also unintentionally make shortages around lower end ranges more severe… Since even if you don’t reallocate capacity (which Coherent implied they’d do to maximize margins), the demand for lower end ranges increase too as pluggable demand grows. Anyway, you’re gonna need a lot of lasers and given low BOM cost… this might trigger some fun game theory allocation wars + price hikes for supply
@aleabitoreddit 1 click

Serenity on X

I guess what I've seen from Chinese laser capacity expansion: 1. Dongshan/Source Photonics (索尔思): 9M/month capacity -> 22M/month Q4 -> 300m/year in 2027 (mostly EML, but blended) Claims of 1B/year "target" for laser chips with no deadline, but I'd take this as a grain of salt. 2. Shijia (仕佳): 72M/year for 100mW CW, 2-3 year project (mainly 2029 full capacity online) 3. Yunling (云岭): 18.75M/year 70/100mW CW, 3 year schedule (mainly 2029 full capacity online) 4. Ligent (纳真), some reports stated 170M target for total capacity (also blended, lot of which is 200G EML) 5. Yuanjie: ~10M/year currently, expanding for early 2027 and 2028, but no quantities. 6. Hongchen: I think this was the perfect example of flooding H2 2026 arguments. With some some optical bears claiming 60-70M capacity... But this turned out to completely wrong... Their actual statements were "70/100 mW products are entering small-volume production". 7. Dingxin Optoelectronics - Targeting 15M/year blended (with 70/100mW CW and 100G EML lines) Obviously mapped many others like Everbright/Accelink and did some guesses around laser mixes, but only included public disclosures. From your pluggable vendor channel checks: - 70mW/100mW lasers are actually a bottleneck right now per Innolight/Cambridge channel checks, laser ASPs actually increasing. Lasers are tighter than they were a few months ago. I don't think there's a giant moat here, Chinese players are already competitive. But a bottleneck is a bottleneck, and anyone with capacity to monetize that will benefit, since it's a volume game. In terms of what the larger pluggable makers are actually doing: - Innolight September disclosure: actively introducing new suppliers and are planning to sign 2-3 year-long contracts to lock upstream capacity for lasers (still actively securing supply for 1.6T pluggables) So there's some game theory over who can lock up qualified capacity among all your players. Even if there's some over-ordering, laser BOM is cheap, so they'd probably want to lock up capacity with more suppliers than lose billions in downstream revenue. (also kinda hurts competitors) - High end lines (for CPO), non-competitive with Western players like $LITE / $COHR as of next few years. But Chinese players would eventually develop the technology. - $AAOI CEO: Chinese suppliers several years behind on high-power CPO/DWDM laser production "not in the next 2,3 years" - $LITE CEO questioned whether claimed Chinese manufacturing capacity was translating into commercial output. "At least at the moment, we see no impact from any Chinese laser supply." This is despite Shijia, Everbright, Yuanjie and others stating 400mW capabilities and capacity expansion targets from Chinese companies. Although Western CEOs might be disputing their reliability and capability to scale these lines. I see lower end range bottleneck for pluggable will gradually ease as more capacity comes online 2028. But all evidence points against near-term overflooding. The 100mW range for example, someone cited 2 years of equipment investment. Higher ranges were 3 years for equipment investment? So even some Chinese players take years for capacity to come online. The multi year laser shortage statements from laser company executives seems to be true... especially among higher end ranges, since buildout takes a lot of time. Legitimate competition coming from China, but as of now there's a scramble for CW LTAs among the industry in 2026-2027. Lot of capacity is probably allocated toward higher spec lasers or EML, as seen with EML bottlenecking $LITE for the longest time (they have more supply now) that they had to buy CW off the market instead of supplying it themselves. This is while tail end for 800G demand for example, might continue much much longer than expected with sovereign DC buildouts. So there might be some surprising dynamics for duration, we'll see. In the end I do think supply chains will be bifurcated: - Chinese players will prioritize domestic capabilities but heavily sources globally. - Western players (now) prioritize Western supply chains unless China comes online with cheap enough supply (which don't see happening near-term). TLDR: -> Multi-year shortage definitely seems accurate for higher end specs -> Lot of China capacity overflooding claims earlier from H1 turned out to be completely false. People keep making them for some reason across memory to photonics. -> Chinese laser players are competitive for 70mW/100MW, meaningful expansion Y/Y, but nothing showing overflooding, given laser demand increasing, probably gradual easing into 2028. We'll see, supply chain evolves month after month, just my current opinion from what I'm seeing.
@aleabitoreddit

Serenity on X

Yes, I like $SIVE. It's a fun company to cover, since there's a lot of supply chain alpha here. But the company completely Tall Poppy Syndromed itself last earnings. And it's clearly shown in the drawdown. Bit of a longer consolidated thought and some scattered bits of supply chain info: - Sivers has 100M CW DFB laser capacity coming online Q4 2027 during an industry shortage. And very large allocations from foundries online (they were doing these quals with Win Semi + 2 others back in 2023/2024), so they can actively monetize the bottleneck today. The other interesting reason why bottlenecks are important (aside from ASP hikes), is because qualifications convert much faster + more likely given incentives around supply scarcity. -> As one example, module makers have expanded the amount of suppliers, eg. (lightcounting cited companies expanding to 5-7+ suppliers from 2-3). Innolight, for example last month responded to a question addressing tight 1.6T DFB laser supply in 2026–2027: - Innolight was actively introducing new suppliers last month and are planning to sign 2-3 year-long contracts to lock upstream capacity -> This is while your biggest merchant laser companies making up the world's 600m+ EML/CW laser capacity like $COHR have redirected lasers to their own programs. $LITE sold out into 2029, Landmark also locked a lot of their capacity into 2027-2029. $AAOI was an expected player, but ended up redirecting lasers into their own transceiver programs too. And this coincides with times $SIVE has tremendous capacity available now + actively engaged with Chinese pluggables players (not saying it's Innolight, but just shows Chinese makers like Cambridge/Eoptolink are actively trying to secure laser capacity). - Fun to note, before $JBL was announced, Sivers had and has ongoing direct engagements with hyperscalers as well. We saw that hyperscalers approached $MTSI and $AAOI for laser capacity from their earnings transcripts (and hilariously got turned away from AAOI due to shortages). So the odds pluggable makers or hyperscalers end up converting to capacity agreements with $SIVE seems a materially higher. Just a little rant: for all the sellside/retail trying to model revenue, you can't just slap on a stupid 25-35% CAGR on NRE revenue since it's close to 0 revenue now. Especially when they scale up to maybe 300M laser capacity (extrapolated from 2:1 external/internal capacity). It's also not the same as $POET having OE packaging capacity at scale, since lasers are in a genuine shortage. So capacity is more likely to convert like how $AAOI is sold out, $LITE is sold out into 2029 We've already seen what revenue that laser capacity brings in since $LITE cited $5B in laser capacity from just one 2028 fab alone in Greensboro (on higher end ranges). And whatever lasers Sivers sell, they're targeting ~50-60+ blended gross margins long term on maybe $3-6 for lower range lasers to $6-$12 for high end custom deployments. But no disclosures around capacity -> revenue conversion yet from Sivers. Now here's the thing people don't really understand, "why no revenue?" for current opportunities? $SIVE pre 2024 focused on custom development for future architectural shifts like CPO. For custom deployments: - We finally got conversion from 1 of their 4 or so lidar customers this week with ~ $AEVA. - ~ $APPL was confirmed ongoing earlier this year with an explanation that "It takes tremendous amount of trials and algorithms way beyond just what we supply to them". - All their customers from 2023-2024 like Ayar and 3 others, probably achieve volume in 2028 as CPO takes off. Custom high end lasers programs are extremely sticky but take many years and are mainly NRE. And as seen with CPO scale up, faced delays with commercialization over the years. So $SIVE from the CEO shift in 2024 realized "okay" let's ramp revenue with mass commercialization products today like 70mW/100mW/200mW lasers for 800g/1.6T pluggables. And that's where they found $JBL and all your other large pluggable players today during the shortage. Now... the work Sivers did in 2023-2024 earlier: Such as $AAPL, Ayar, $AEVA, other lidar/CPO players. And their new mass commercialization opportunities like $JBL, $GFS, and many pluggables/NPO suppliers in engagement now. Have all their inflection points converges 2027 onward, which is why I find the company compelling. Where I think management went completely wrong was messaging and near-term execution: - Deciding to focus on current tiny contracts like Seminex, AllSpace, Tachyon orders felt like the entire focus recently in earnings, shareholder letters, and media commentary -> Brutal honesty to $SIVE management, majority of Western audiences literally don't care and it's immaterial to the valuation. $SIVE moved 0% on all of the Seminex/AllSpace/Tachyon order announcements, and even dropped in price. But rallied like 50% on $GFS and something similar on $JBL announcement. The reason why most took long positions in the first place was CPO. So if $SIVE wants to go answer questions to Swedish media about "Why are you bleeding out" and defending that with cellular orders explaining pipeline conversion. That's not going to help people stay long during drawdowns. -> Second part was not committing to NASDAQ listing in a certain timeframe and actually executing. - If there's delays, sure, just say it, but non-committal lawyer-like language is infuriating to hear, especially from the CFO. I think they'll have that opportunity next month earnings to correct everything. So wrapping up: - There's nothing I see remotely close to $SIVE, in terms of % of global CW laser capacity they're coming online with relative to MC. - They have a ton commercialization paths, from O-Net, $POET, $JBL, Ayar, $GFS, $AAPL, $AEVA, and many potential hyperscaler/pluggable engagements. Even if one or two fall through, the breadth of ongoing quals is so deep + current laser bottleneck is severe, that it's more likely than not many will convert to production. It's clear $SIVE wants to focus on dominating the laser chokepoint first, and ended up using their 700m SEK fundraise for capacity expansion. But they should focus on communicating the billions in potential economic scale from that laser capacity conversion. And execute on it.
@convequity 1 click

Convequity on X

If scale-up uses VCSEL arrays, we think Lumentum ($LITE) would compete with several vendors, eroding its valuation's scarcity premium. Many smart investors are bullish and credit Lumentum with an exclusive ability to make ultra-high-power CW (continuous-beam) lasers for scale-up links between AI chips. If those links go wide and slow (many small VCSEL or microLED emitters, each at modest speed), that case could break down. Lumentum's own Open Compute Project demo used VCSEL arrays from its smartphone 3D-sensing manufacturing platform. The demo is an in-rack proof of concept, not a replacement for every higher-power laser. Credo ($CRDO) opened a workstream with a hyperscaler and ams OSRAM to standardise wide, parallel links, citing supply-chain resiliency, targeting 2027 approval. VCSEL arrays are tested on the wafer, so they are cheap in volume. The standard would let operators buy from Coherent ($COHR), ams OSRAM and others. In that case, we think Lumentum competes on scale and cost, not scarcity: customers can switch, pricing power and margins come under pressure and share must be won. Near-term earnings can still benefit from the laser shortage, with Lumentum sold out through early 2029.
@aleabitoreddit

Serenity on X

What oversupply? Even in the lower end ranges that they're focusing on, Chinese pluggable makers like Innolight are still bottlenecked for 70-100mW ranges from ECOC channel checks. Cambridge wouldn't be going out financing suppliers with convertible loans for scarce laser capacity. Suppliers wouldn't be raising ASPs if there was overcapacity. Also not all CW lasers are the same. China is a ways away from from scaling UHP lasers needed for CPO, which is why there's still premiums given to $LITE, $COHR, $SIVE. $LITE lasers are sold out into 2029 and they're starting negotiations into 2030. I don't think anyone genuinely believes that China will flood the laser markets medium term, even both $LITE / $AAOI CEO said there was a difference between comments made and what they're actually seeing. From AOI on China: "of them, they are working maybe 70 mW or very few can really do 100 mW. For 300 mW laser, especially DWDM spec, we don't see that." "Not in the next two, three years, especially the demand is so big. Okay? Even combined AOI, Lumentum, Coherent, Broadcom all together, it's still very tough to meet the customer demand in the next few years" From Lumentum last month: "At least at the moment, we see no impact from any Chinese laser supply." But whenever markets want a correction people just blindly point to China with memory or optics while ignoring what's actually occurring with demand imbalances + LTAs spanning many years and constantly extending.
@aleabitoreddit

Serenity on X

I think almost everything about my $AXTI thesis from 2025 was validated? From AXT's position in the InP substrate bottleneck... Being able to threaten the hyperscaler buildout (per Reuters)... $IQE has been flagging this as a major risk, VPEC and Taiwan epiwafer foundries have been crying over InP substrate bottlenecks. And there's even AXT direct confirmation of partnerships with $LITE and $COHR as the InP substrate supplier. AXT also stated $130m/quarter InP revenue capacity exiting 2027 (~$520m annualized) so that's a massive revenue inflection compared to previously. Now... the biggest question is: How much can AXT price hike? The substrates they make are just such a tiny part of the BOM... but can threaten hyperscaler buildouts with optics. So if they manage to price hike to $SNDK NAND degrees (which they can), then I think AXT could get re-rated a ton from here. But if they end up like Japanese ABF suppliers that are less willing to abuse their position, that's a different story. Will need to do more channel checks to see how that's coming along. But at the very least, I would argue there should be some valuation baseline just due to their critical importance (eg. upstream refinery ownerships, crucible processing, etc) + existing capacity revenue without hikes. TLDR: - Bottleneck thesis was at like ~$500m MC - Upside now comes from price hikes due to duopoly position + ownership of upstream bottlenecks in the InP substrate manufacturing process. (which they can due to low cost of InP substrates in overall costs) - Uncharted territory, we'll see (also a central part of geopolitical tensions so there's always risk there).
@aleabitoreddit

Serenity on X

"Potential FCC rules on optical transceivers more likely to come at 3.2T" - $LITE, $AAOI, $COHR, $SIVE. Morgan Stanley met with Washington officials: - Restrictions would likely start at 3.2T modules made in China (800g/1.6T would be left alone) - Potential restrictions would likely keep laser market tight (combining US DSPs + lasers could meet the 65% US value threshold per MS) - Chinese modules could qualify if 65% of bill of materials is US content. Chinese modules using US DSPs and lasers are already near that level - Analysts expect the positive impact on laser pricing... to be more important than any broad redistribution of transceiver market share. - Analysts don't expect this to bottleneck hyperscaler AI buildouts, they name InP substrate supply as the key variable to watch (hello $AXTI ) TLDR: Component suppliers in general are really positive. Like $SMTC probably winner here for TIAs/drivers (I don't think this was listed), maybe $MXL for DSPs too. $AAOI another large beneficiary. $SIVE is high-key alpha for laser beneficaries since they have "tremendous capacity" coming online, and that points to US foundries (they haven't formally disclosed location). Since previous slideshows show 2 US foundries 1 Taiwan foundry (Win Semi) in terms of their capacity partnerships. And it's process of elimination. From CIOE Channel checks it does look like they're starting to work with Chinese pluggable players, (so they'd avenues moving forward as US supply chain component beneficiaries). Of course $LITE / $COHR would be happy. TLDR: Western supply chains for Lasers / DSPs / TIAs / others are already bottlenecked but qualified capacity becomes even more important.
@convequity 1 click

Convequity on X

An optical circuit switch never converts the light. A conventional switch takes light in, turns it into electricity, makes a decision, turns it back into light. An optical circuit switch steers the beam. The principle in the note: rather than optimizing a difficult conversion step, remove it. Three constraints follow. 1. Power. A 100-terabit-class silicon photonics OCS consumes only 200–300 W, against roughly 6,000 W for an equivalent electrical switch. More than a 20× advantage. The 200–300 W figure is measured with the amplifiers already in place. 2. Rate. The switch is optically transparent, so the same module supports 800G, 1.6T, 2.4T and 3.2T. It does not have to be replaced each time the transceivers get faster. 3. Insertion loss. Silicon photonics currently loses more light in transit than the MEMS alternative, so semiconductor optical amplifiers are added to restore optical power. That adds system complexity. Google buys these switches from optics makers, not from the usual switch-chip vendors. Calient, Lumentum ($LITE) and Coherent ($COHR) supply Google ($GOOGL).
@ActAccordingly 2 clicks

PAA Research on X

If you're wondering just how unusual this year has been, here's yet another way to look at it. TWENTY THREE S&P 500 stocks have increased 100%+ this year. That's by far the highest number for at least the past FORTY years (maybe all-time). The stocks that have doubled have contributed roughly 5-6% of the overall 8% gain YTD for the S&P 500. It is highly unusual for an S&P 500 stock to double. In most years, there are at most a few stocks that double. Of course the last time we saw a surge in the number of S&P 500 stocks that doubled was in 1999..... History suggests this type of unrelenting bid will not be sustained. As you look at the list below, you'll notice the only non-AI/semis/data center stock in the S&P 500 that has doubled is $MRNA, which was down (-90%+) from its COVID19 highs. If you're looking for doubles or 10-baggers going forward, perhaps it's time to look outside of the data center trade... $SNDK $WDC $STX $MU $INTC $DELL $MRVL $FLEX $AMD $AMAT $LITE $GLW $LRCX $TER $ON $COHR $MRNA $FIX $HPE $GNRC $KLAC $Q

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