NASDAQ

MACOM Technology Solutions Holdings, Inc.

MTSI

5 stories

$21B Market cap · 2026-10-22

@aleabitoreddit Oct 24

Serenity on X

I think it's always helpful to learn what's going on in the supply chain, even if you're not an investor in lasers or $SIVE. There's a lot of dynamics + game theory that goes on in supply shortages like: - Expanding supplier # during shortages -> more opportunities for others. - or as seen with $LITE sold out into 2027 -> causes other hyperscalers to sign LTAs -> capacity sold out into 2029 -> hyperscalers approach $MTSI / $AAOI + others for their own ramps or different opportunities from supply procurement info like $JBL 1.6T LRO program scaling up in H2 2027 from upstream disclosures.

@aleabitoreddit Oct 24

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.

@aleabitoreddit Oct 15

Serenity on X

Nobody said $SIVE was going to be the sole laser provider for Ayar for all generations. 2nd gen Supernova was 16x wavelength that they confirmed Sivers. Ayar is expected to do multi-vendor for lasers, would be stupid not to. Originally disclosed suppliers were $LITE, $MTSI, and $SIVE, but there's probably only a few companies that can do this new design. For their new demonstration at OCP it's 8x 200mW range, $LITE is probably the closest one technologically to Ayar's OCP announcement, with 8x 250 mW demonstrated at ECOC just last month that they're targeting availability later in 2027. I don't see anything where $MTSI has demonstrated remotely similar capabilities yet. Macom were saying they were still working on 75 mW qualifications targeting production H2 2027. $SIVE has lower power 8/16 channel specs, and individual 200 mW lasers for NPO. I think this might relate to their Seminex partnership for UHP multi channel variants that they were targeting for 2027 so high confidence they'll meet technology specs eventually, more of a matter of timing. But basically new announced configuration from Ayar, can't really make any assumptions here yet, will need to wait for earnings of these players.

@aleabitoreddit Oct 12 2 clicks

Serenity on X

Sure... Random train of thoughts on markets now, optics like $LITE / memory + $IREN / Anthropic. On Memory: - Demand visibility on $MU / Samsung / SK Hynix extend into 2030-2031. Samsung has LTAs covering 70% of their capacity into 2031 (likely with SK Hynix type price floors)... and their operating profit is already absurd. There's a consensus that shortage in 2027 will be much more severe than 2026... Even $SNDK expends gross margins to exceed 80% entering 2030. You're going to hear Acer and other CEOs that want memory prices to go down cite bear cases like CXMT/YMTC, and Chinese players. But just looking at supply procurement that $NVDA is doing + hyperscalers, demand visibility is absurd for the next 5 years. And by that time, cumulative FCF coming in from these take/pay + pricing floor contracts might exceed some of their entire marketcaps so it feels like there's some baseline. Near-term is always volatile (IV dropped a ton across $EWY to $DRAM to $MU), so people with call options likely got nuked, along with underlying prices. But if Samsung is 3x 2027E, has 5 year LTAs with 70% of capacity committed from hyperscalers, and price floors, it's kinda hard to see these names suffer a sustained crash... For optics: - $LITE is literally sold out into 2029, starting discussions into 2030. With demand visibility lasting into 2031… with hyperscalers largely funding the capacity buildout. Their 2028 Greensboro fab expansion was ~$5B in UHP laser capacity revenue alone, yet it’s basically allocated toward $NVDA (50%+ with options for more) and co from channel checks. Existing supply chain bottlenecks are extremely severe as optical content/XPU skyrockets entering 2027-2028. So everything from DSPs/TIAs, photodiodes, lasers, InP/SOI substrates, wafers (epi, SOI, etc) are expected to go brrr. And what does that imply to anyone else with enormous amounts of capacity coming online like $AAOI + $SIVE + $MTSI capacity expansion in 2027? Or other players like Sumitomo / Furukawa? But again it's not quite the same situation as memory since the BOM % is extremely low in a cluster... If micron/samsung raised another 2000% hyperscalers would go bankrupt. But doing that for InP substrates seems possible. Or a 100% increase on CW laser content. I actually thought $LITE was overvalued at $100B+ MC, relative to capacity expansion on your smaller optical players to their respective MCs. So I chose to position accordingly (But lumentum does deserve premiums for demand visibility). For the companies leading the charge like $NVDA / $AVGO / $MRVL: - Nvidia has 70% forward revenue growth FY2028 which is supply constrained growth. - Broadcom 100% Y/Y for 2027/2028 which is also supply constrained growth. - Marvell FY2031 upgraded guidance to $70B-$90B from $46B analyst projections... They all seem to be very happy.... and read through on demand for next 2-3 years is enormous (also echoing what $INTC CEO said today on the panel with $AVGO CEO). So you have overwhelming growth on memory + photonics + from the leaders... But the nuance is not everything in the AI supply chain get the same economic benefit. HBM/Laser/CPU/MLCC and other players in the bottlenecks look to be printing money. And seem to be the largest beneficiaries of the current bottlenecks. Test players are also getting price hikes + capacity allocated by players like $NVDA, but economic impact seems a tad lower than other players since forward P/E for many I modeled were still in the 45x+ range even if you hiked prices like 10-30%. As for capex intensive players... there's some like $IREN ($25-30B for 2027) that despite a deal with Anthropic ended up dropping. I don't think markets seem to appreciate players spending a lot of money + ongoing financing (think they're like halfway through their $6B ATM). Just some hopium for $IREN investors, $NBIS also signed a deal with $META at the start of the year (but markets didn't care at all, since Nebius dropped to ~$70-80 at the lowest point?). But did 6 months later, as the time to revenue inflection gets closer and you're past the ATM/capex window, markets would likely care more. I don't think it's irrational but at the same time, the fundamentals have improved from Mirantis acquisition to others. I also think it was known for awhile it was either OpenAI/Anthropic from CEO comments earlier too? But either way to be a more risk-off environment where funds seem to be rotating to larger names as a flight to safety. $CRWD / $PLTR as just two example, but my take is that the valuations of these rotations are reaching clown levels. And that certain AI supply chain beneficiaries in comparison are undervalued now. I was thinking markets would just rotate to names that are extremely profitable like Samsung or names that have <2X P/E, so it was surprising to see $KOSPI and some legacy memory players get sold off today. Since all of this is colliding with uncertainty about sht macro environments and renewed sustainability concern of AI capex/commitments from frontier labs like OpenAI/Anthropic from due to that FT piece recently. I've always been sounding the alarm about the contractual backlog OpenAI has with $CBRS, $MSFT, $ORCL and others earlier in the year. But OpenAI did just raise $122B or so , so I don't quite think they're at risk of going down anytime soon. I also don't think overall capex can just exponentially go up, but even if it stalls / hovers around a certain point or even drops... Capex toward certain areas like optics will still explode as hyperscalers fight over allocations when CPO scale up comes about, but might drop in others where more capacity comes online like test or DRAM. So it's a lot more nuanced than capex down = everything down or vice versa. I also slightly agree with community agreements that open weight models wouldn't lessen demand on AI infrastructure (otherwise $NVDA wouldn't be funneling funds into Reflection), but all the contractual obligations that Anthropic has might get messy if their models/company get cannibalized. Either way, I'd expect some of these frontier lab valuations to likely compress but I do think Jensen knows what he's doing though to avoid contagion. But basically: - Extremely difficult market now, can't just throw money at any AI supply chain company like $GLW and expect it to go up. There's cause for concern of rate hikes mixed with financing per $AVGO CEO but not to the point you just blindly sell off everything. Also I think markets are stupid and ties baskets together so that leads to mispricing + individual buying opportunities with certain chokepoints too. If capacity + demand is visible and forward p/e compresses like $AAOI to single digits off hundreds or thousands of percent growth from hyperscalers off $471m transceiver revenues and hundreds of thousands of monthly ELSFP capacity. Or $SIVE coming online with 100M+ laser capacity + multiple foundries with ASP hikes on lasers. I wouldn't lump them into other AI supply chain names in IP like $RMBS or others. My take is that AI supply chain beneficiaries with closer inflection points, demand visibility, and forward P/E compressing due to economic leverage would likely outperform medium term despite current volatility. TLDR: - Memory strongest risk/adjusted return with LTAs + pricing floors extending to 2030's + buybacks. - My opinion is that optical supercycle for 2027-2028 with CPO/NPO is going to look absurd relative to capacity coming online of smaller suppliers. - Overwhelming fundamentals/growth colliding with sht macro + media scares - Markets are stupid and groups things in baskets and sells them all off together or buys overvalued names, creating short/long opportunities I'd give a prayer to people on short term options given underlying drop + IV decline, but there could be a reversal... who knows. Most valuable thing right now is time.

@aleabitoreddit Oct 10

Serenity on X

Good question! Just some informal thoughts... there's three "moats" to look at for $SIVE: - Capacity - Qualifications (especially for custom DFB lasers) - Technological 1. For capacity, they're coming online with 100M+ CW DFB lasers Q4 2027 (global supply is roughly ~608M EML/CW lasers currently per Trendforce). Obviously by 2027 global capacity is going to grow a lot, with $AAOI, $AVGO (3x expansion), and others coming online. But if you extrapolate their 2:1 statement, that implies 300m lasers/year long term coming from their own supply + external foundries. This is incredibly valuable during a shortage that was quoted to be 3-5 years, and $LITE stating they already have demand visibility into 2031... And when suppliers have started to qualify many more (eg. 5-7 vendors vs. 2-3 earlier) due to bottlenecks. I'm sure a lot of how they achieve that staggering amount is due to their manufacturing process/yields (which is a moat). 2. For qualifications, if you look at 70mW/100mW pluggable lines with Chinese players, I'd argue this is more generic and moreso reverting back to a capacity argument and manufacturing process to achieve those numbers. Custom DFB arrays that they've been working on with Ayar (they hinted at 2-3 others back in 2023 like Celestial) take years for optical i/o related things and would be a moat if they finish quals. So it's not quite something you can hot swap or design out really easily for $MTSI or another company. But of course cpo scale up and such is mass volume in 2028, and we're still H2 2026. 3. People can always compare raw specs like power output, but it's probably way way more nuanced so easier to just point toward customer statements. With $JBL 1.6T LRO: "I think that there's the potential for a relatively dramatic moat with our LRO part…" from Jabil's EVP, especially related to power consumption. And $SIVE is my guess sole source in this line. Jabil is probably the most important testament to how their lasers perform in mass production scenarios maybe around Q2 next year. Ayar said something similar along the lines of "we couldn't do it without Sivers" for custom implementations.

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