Silicon photonics moves the optical/electrical boundary from pluggable transceivers toward the switch and accelerator package itself, using CMOS-compatible waveguides, modulators, and photodetectors integrated on silicon. Near-term revenue is driven by the 800G to 1.6T pluggable transceiver ramp for AI back-end fabrics and the transition to co-packaged optics (CPO) and linear pluggable optics (LPO) in next-generation switches from Broadcom, NVIDIA, and Marvell. Volume today concentrates at Chinese and Taiwanese module houses (Innolight, Eoptolink, Fujikura), with U.S.-listed leverage in optical component and DSP vendors (Coherent, Lumentum, Marvell, Credo, MACOM, Astera Labs) and switch OEMs (Arista, Cisco, Ciena, Nokia). Enablers include indium-phosphide laser suppliers, silicon-photonics foundry capacity at TSMC and Tower, and the packaging/assembly ecosystem that couples fiber arrays to silicon dies. Hyperscaler qualification cycles and thermal/reliability trade-offs between CPO, near-package optics, and continued pluggables are the key competitive variables.
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